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Title: Debates on Fascism
Author: Ruckus Collective
Date: October 10, 2008
Language: en
Topics: fascism, anti-fascism, review, Bring the Ruckus, debate
Source: Retrieved on 15th November 2021 from https://joelolson.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Facism.pdf

Ruckus Collective

Debates on Fascism

We’re publishing the following debates in the hope they will stir a

broader debate. They’ve occurred as internal and external conversations

between BTR members, contributors to the Threewayfight blog, and others.

The opinions expressed do not represent organizational positions, but

those of members themselves.

On “Fascism and Anti-Fascism”: A Review of Don Hamerquist’s Essay

By Geert (Western Mass.) and Joel (Flagstaff)

May 12, 2008

We thought that commenting on Don Hamerquist’s essay, “Fascism and

Anti-Fascism” from the book Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents

for a Militant Movement (2002, which also includes writings by J. Sakai,

C. Alexander and Mark Salotte) would contribute to the debate about

anti-fascist work in the discussion bulletin.

The essay is an interesting read with a lot of useful insights. Most

importantly, it provides a historical framework that understands fascism

as not just a ruling class reaction but also as a popular working-class

phenomenon. Certain sections of the fascist movement are genuinely

anti-capitalist and fascism is not necessarily just a form of “gorilla

capitalism.” These working-class and genuinely anti-capitalist forms of

fascism are the ones we should pay particular attention to.

As Hamerquist writes:

“The emerging fascist movement for which we must prepare will be rooted

in populist nationalist anti-capitalism and will have an intransigent

hostility to various state and supra-state institutions. The essence of

anti-fascist organizing must be the development of a left bloc that can

successfully compete with such fascists, presenting a revolutionary

option that confronts both fascism and capitalism in the realm of ideas

and on the street. As I have said, unless the left can become such an

alternative, there is a real danger that fascist movements will be the

main beneficiary of capital’s developing contradictions. It would be

convenient if, for lack of an alternative, large numbers of people would

automatically rally behind the left’s various tattered flags wherever

they got basically pissed off. However, in a crisis there will be

alternatives to the left-fascist ones, and the left may very well not

look like much of an alternative to capitalism. Sadly, it will not only

be hard to distinguish the U.S. Left from various liberal capitalist

factions, the lines between it and some of the fascists are also likely

to be pretty indistinct. (28–29)

We assume we all agree with the essence of this important argument:

anti-capitalist forms of fascism, however small and marginal at this

moment, form an attractive alternative to liberalism for the working

class. The revolutionary left has positions and arguments which

sometimes seem indistinguishable from the liberal left. (For example, in

the battle around immigration how does the revolutionary left

differentiate itself from the liberal left?) At other times, as

Hamerquist points out, the anti-capitalist tendencies within fascism

seem very close to the revolutionary left.

There are a series of other things that we can agree with about

Hamerquist’s argument:

The anti-capitalist fascist right is competing for many of the same

alienated and angry white workers that the revolutionary left is.

• Only a revolutionary rather than social democratic alternative can win

angry and alienated sectors of the working class away from fascism.

• The task of the left is to build this alternative, both in terms of

culture and political movements and organizations.

• The “three-way fight” analysis, which clearly comes from this

perspective, is generally right that we face a fight against both the

reactionary right and the state/ruling class in building a new world.

The problem with the analysis

The goal, as Hamerquist argues, is to build an alternative revolutionary

pole that can win folks away from fascism. However, Hamerquist provides

no convincing argument for why we should do specifically antifascist

work in competing with the fascists to build a popular base. We are not

convvinced by his analysis that antifascist work can win the working

class away from revolutionary fascism. One reason is that his brief

discussion of the advantages of antifascist work are not reflective of

the experience of Anti-Racist Action. Contrary to Hamerquist’s hopes,

ARA and antifascist work in the U.S. in general have not a) developed

revolutionary cadre or b) developed a popular culture “based on a core

of intransigent anti-capitalism” (54). Instead, American antifascist

work has built a small base of punks and skins who by and large haven’t

developed cadre and who remain locked in punk subcultures, subcultures

that are “alternative” but hardly “intransigently anti-capitalist.” This

was true at the height of ARA’s influence in the 1990s and still remains

true today.

Hamerquist also argues that fascism is not necessarily white

supremacist. This is not persuasive at all. We agree with him that

fascism (or similar systems) can emerge anywhere in the world. Globally,

then, fascism need not be “white.” But in the U.S. we believe it is

inevitable that any fascist program will be white supremacist. His

argument that Black nationalism could develop into fascism, for example,

is not plausible. Malcolm X’s meetings in the 1950s with the American

Nazi George Rockwell notwithstanding, the chances of a “Black fascism”

or of unity between white separatists and Black separatists at best

would be tactical and short-lived, and then quickly turn murderous.

Contrary to Hamerquist, we do not believe that the U.S. is likely to

become fascist in the near or medium term because the continuing power

of whiteness makes fascism unnecessary. In the U.S., the herrenvolk

democracy (democracy for the master race, tyranny for everyone else) has

historically performed the repressive functions of a fascist state but

with a democratic veneer. Importantly, herrenvolk democracy has given

the white working class a voice in government, which undermines efforts

by fascist tendencies to build a movement from below to challenge the

state. Further, the cross-class alliance that makes up the “white race”

has historically brought the white working class together with the

ruling class, making a fascist anti-capitalist upsurge unlikely. That’s

why Germany gets the Brownshirts, but the U.S. gets KKK.

For these three reasons, we don’t think antifascist work is something

that revolutionaries in the U.S. should devote a lot of resources on

(except for the occasional confrontation with nazi skins to drive them

out of a town or scene, etc.). Hamerquist urges a fight of “extreme vs.

extreme”: the anti-capitalist left vs. the anti-capitalist right. This,

however, is what Lorenzo Komboa Ervin correctly rejects as a “vanguard

vs. vanguard” strategy. Our approach should instead follow the

abolitionists’ fanaticism: draw lines between extremes (i.e. friends and

enemies), but then use those lines to attack the middle, i.e. the state

and capital and political moderates, in order to mobilize a mass base

along the lines of our politics. This is where our focus on fighting

white privilege remains useful. Rather than fighting with the fascist

enemy in a “vanguard vs. vanguard” approach, we build a base by

distinguishing ourselves from the state, capital, and liberals. By

distinguishing ourselves from this political “middle,” we build a

politics and program that can compete with and defeat a fascist/white

supremacist pole.

An American fascism, then, is a long-term prospect at best. There’s a

greater likelihood of the return of herrenvolk democracy and white

standing in the U.S. than there is of fascism. The best way to compete

with the fascists to win over angry alienated workers is not to fight

nazis but to build our alternative by differentiating ourselves from the

liberal left and focusing on the fight against the state and capital.

Thus, we don’t see the reason to make antifascism a central point of our

work.

Response from Peter Little (Portland):

May 08

I want to thank Geert and Joel for taking on the significance of

antifascist politics and work, and for pushing this argument along.

Allow me to “bend the stick” in the other direction for a moment.

We need to be further developing the implications of 3 way fight

politics in our work. I think we agree on this point. However, a 3 way

fight analysis actually points to the significance of antifascist work.

I also want to apologize for the roughness of this response. I’m erring

on the side of getting people a chance to see something as opposed to a

polished and well developed response.

Although there are a number of assumptions underlying Geert and Joel’s

argument that I want to challenge, I want to begin with a simplification

they make which actually muddies the debate. With a sweeping gesture,

they use a very limited (and debatably accurate) presentation of ARA to

sum up the possibilities of antifascist work. The review of Hammerquist

and Sakai’s,”Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement,” makes a

large number of unsupported statements regarding the legacy and

potentials for antifascist work in the US. It is my hope that this

response will push its authors to produce the evidence and support for

their assertions with which to better produce meaningful debate on the

subject.

-ARA and antifascist work in the U.S. in general have not a) developed

revolutionary cadre or b) developed a popular culture “based on a core

of intransigent anti-capitalism” (54). Instead, American antifascist

work has built a small base of punks and skins who by and large haven’t

developed cadre and who remain locked in punk subcultures, subcultures

that are “alternative” but hardly “intransigently anti-capitalist.” This

was true at the height of ARA’s influence in the 1990s and still remains

true today.

There are two points I want to take up here.

I can’t speak to the legacy of ARA elsewhere, but my own anecdotal

experience with antifascist organizing in Portland contradicts the

preceding assertions about antifascist work, while pointing

simultaneously to the dangers of underestimating the possibilites of a

popular, anticapitalist fascism emerging on the near horizon.

In the late eighties and early nineties, concurrent with an upsurge of

white supremacist youth organizing across the country, white

supremacists targeted the Northwest US for the development of a ‘White

Homeland’ (see the Northwest Imperative). In lily white Portland Oregon,

the whitest large city in the United States, this manifested in what

became a protracted struggle for public and political space. In the

course of ten years, a low intensity war raged in the streets of the

city. People on both sides (and a number of ‘uninvolved’ queer and

people of color targeted by the fascists) ended up assassinated, beaten,

and also imprisoned. Firebombings and home invasions became more than an

occasional occurrence, and running street battles outside of youth clubs

and music venues between antifascists and fascists became a regular

event in youth culture in this city. A few times, these street fights

escalated to gun battles and dropped bodies.

This struggle emerged so forcefully that it largely defined the

political dialogue and struggles during that time period within the

city. The three primary groupings (all with overlapping membership and

bases) that organized against this very real threat, (The Coalition for

Human Dignity, Skinheads Against Racist Prejudice, and Anti-Racist

Action) all had a massive popular base within the city, and were

arguably one of the few places where interracial and antiracist popular

culture emerged in the city during those times.

When the sr. Bush traveled through the area during this time, the riots

that greeted him provoked him to dub the city,”Little Beirut” The crowd

offering the greeting was largely composed of ARA and SHARP youth. The

point here is not to infer that there was a conscious anti-capitalist

pole(although I believe there was) within the popular antifascist

struggle in Portland during that era, but that the militance and

rebellious spirit of the antifascist organizing spilled across ‘issue’

distinctions and existed as a clear pole in numerous struggles across

the city and region.

The fascist threat at that time was real-it had popular support in

segments of the population and was growing in strength. Had forward

thinking people not organized to confront it, it held the potential to

reconfigure the political landscape of the region. The folks who

organized against it ended up pitted against the state-and both local

and federal police responses-both which longed for no more than to lock

up both sides and be done, to return to their little quiet white liberal

‘peace’. Targeting the middle or the simply the state from a position of

fanaticism or zealotry(to create lines), however, wasn’t an option. This

wasn’t, as Geert and Joel argue might be necessary, “chasing nazis out

of a scene” or organizing against a specific event they staged. This was

a struggle over the life of the city itself, with life and death

consequences for those in the struggle itself. Close to a dozen white

supremacist street gangs sprouted up in the city, with an active base of

hundreds of supporters and an even greater number of sympathizers and

affiliates in their ranks. These fascists may have targeted a subculture

and a music scene (and parts of the streets and neighborhoods) for

recruitment, but to the numerous queer and people of color who were

hospitalized, paralyzed, whose homes were firebombed, or who were

murdered, there was no choice but to defend their city and their

community. The fascist organizing had popular potential, was radical and

anti-state, and was a real threat.

The entire piece is underlaid with a static interpretation of economics,

race, and politics within the US, on a number of critical issues. It

fails to acknowledge the shifting nature of white supremacy, the rapidly

transforming (and contested) nature and role of the state in an

international economy(and the differing tendencies determining its

trajectory), and the centripetal crises that appear to be flinging

contradiction after contradiction in the form of mud on the faces of

bourgeois democracy’s proponents(and its new heroes in the liberal and

Democratic party sectors).

Contrary to Hamerquist, we do not believe that the U.S. is likely to

become fascist in the near or medium term because the continuing power

of whiteness makes fascism unnecessary. In the U.S., the herrenvolk

democracy (democracy for the master race, tyranny for everyone else) has

historically performed the repressive functions of a fascist state but

with a democratic veneer. Importantly, herrenvolk democracy has given

the white working class a voice in government, which undermines efforts

by fascist tendencies to build a movement from below to challenge the

state. Further, the cross-class alliance that makes up the “white race”

has historically brought the white working class together with the

ruling class, making a fascist anti-capitalist upsurge unlikely. That’s

why Germany gets the Brownshirts, but the U.S. gets KKK.....

For these three reasons, we don’t think antifascist work is something

that revolutionaries in the U.S. should devote a lot of resources on

(except for the occasional confrontation with nazi skins to drive them

out of a town or scene, etc.). Hamerquist urges a fight of “extreme vs.

extreme”: the anti-capitalist left vs. the anti-capitalist right. This,

however, is what Lorenzo Komboa Ervin correctly rejects as a “vanguard

vs. vanguard” strategy. Our approach should instead follow the

abolitionists’ fanaticism: draw lines between extremes (i.e. friends and

enemies), but then use those lines to attack the middle, i.e. the state

and capital and political moderates, in order to mobilize a mass base

along the lines of our politics. This is where our focus on fighting

white privilege remains useful. Rather than fighting with the fascist

enemy in a “vanguard vs. vanguard” approach, we build a base by

distinguishing ourselves from the state, capital, and liberals. By

distinguishing ourselves from this political “middle,” we build a

politics and program that can compete with and defeat a fascist/white

supremacist pole.

An American fascism, then, is a long-term prospect at best. There?s a

greater likelihood of the return of herrenvolk democracy and white

standing in the U.S. than there is of fascism. The best way to compete

with the fascists to win over angry alienated workers is not to fight

nazis but to build our alternative by differentiating ourselves from the

liberal left and focusing on the fight against the state and capital.”

An snapshot of the state in this moment, with repressive ICE raids,

massive incarceration of people of color, unwinnable but committed

military engagement in numerous parts of the globe, can be deceiving. A

snapshot is good at showing the surface of an object at a specific

moment in time. What it fails to show, though, is the movement of that

object, its trajectory, and even more importantly, the different forces

and tendencies driving its internal development.

We’ve got to pierce below this surface, to examine the contradictions

and forces driving the state at this moment. Below the surface, we can

hope to tease out the economic forces driving and crafting the differing

tendencies vying for dominance within the state itself.

The review seems to fail to take into account or acknowledge the

shifting role of the nation state under a truly global form of

capitalism. Old forms of “herrenvolk democracy” (as defined above)

reflected a particular moment in the development of national poles of

capital. A globalized and international capitalism has made clear its

internationalism-we now face the greatest wave of human migration(across

the planet) in history. The uprooting and massive movement of peoples is

a defining element of this epoch. This is not something that global

capital is likely to retreat from. From the shattering of Japan’s

historic isolationism (and the emergence of immigrant labor for the

first time in its history) to the manning of the oil fields of the

Middle East by Asian indentured labor to Filipino nurses remittances

holding their native country’s economy afloat, massive immigration and

geographic dispersal of human labor is a defining element not likely to

be stemmed or overturned in the absence of a revolution(this is not to

assume it would be a liberatory revolution, but rather a radical

transformation of relationships of power within a society).

The review’s arguement fails to acknowledge that the Klan of today is

not the Klan of reconstruction or Jim Crow. As Sakai and Hammerquist

point out, in the 80s a new, antistate Klan emerged. A defining element

of the time’s new right wing populism is the notion of muticulturalism

as a conspiracy of the liberal state (and international capital.) To the

extent that the current migration of 12–20 million undocumented workers

to the US country was the end result of conscious policies of economic

dislocation in home communities and the engineering of semiporous

borders to promote their labor as ‘illegal’ persons in the United

States, there is an element of truth to this belief. Maybe the ruling

class will be happy to see white workers duking it out with nonwhite

workers over the crumbs that continue to diminish in quantity within

this economy, but the reviewers fail to offer any evidence that the

state is willing to make meaningful concessions towards a return to old

forms of white supremacy and ‘herrenvolk democracy’.

The new form of white supremacy is less an international labor

aristocracy in the heart of empire than the elusive promise of

‘security’-i.e. diminished: incarceration rates, rates of absolute

displacement from waged employment, and open state repression. The old

unionized factories jobs with,?first hired, last fired,? guarantees for

white workers are no longer an offering in that bargain.

All indicators actually point towards a new tendency as emergent as

dominant within the State. Green capitalism and comprehensive

immigration reform are the buzzwords of the emerging and driving

tendency within the political class within the United States. This

represents Capital’s tempering of access to the state by those who’ve

been struggling for a return to such herrenvolk democracy.

This is the same government that waged a counterinsurgency in the 90s

against the Militia movement, giving us Ruby Ridge, militant (armed)

anti-abortion activism, and the Oklahoma City bombing. If this state is

really capable of allowing a return to old forms of herrenvolk white

supremacy, why did this state wage a clear and real war against its very

adherents? Its important to note that it was this very counterinsurgency

campaign which birthed the Oklahoma City bombing, and not the other way

around.

This is the same state which, after four years of theatrical gestures

made in attempts to keep the anti-immigrant movement (which is housing

many of the activists from the right wing populist movements of the 90s)

within the scope of electoral activity, has now largely dumped their

base(at least federally). The nomination of McCain is the temporary

sealing of this fate, as he aligns himself with the green capitalists

and comprehensive immigration reformers in the Democratic party. The

‘invisible hand of capital’ asserts itself yet again.

The State is contested terrain-white supremacists seeking a return to

herrenvolk democracy have pulled its policies towards them with their

grassroots organizing-in armed border activism, electoral forays, and in

regional moblizations against immigrant communities. These are many of

the folks who engaged in armed anti-environmental and land rebellions

across the Midwest and West in the 90s. There isn’t evidence that the

state has taken their attempts at actually influencing the racial

composition (as opposed to its racial hierarchy) of the country

seriously, however. The numbers of workers actually deported have yet to

have real detrimental economic impacts for business in most parts of the

country.

In Arizona, where employer associations ARE acknowledging the

economically detrimental effects of white supremacist organizing on the

state, we now see a new trend within the political class, calling for

FBI inquiries against anti-immigrant politicians, and indicating the

reigning in(or possible exile) of the anti-immigrant movement from

electoral politics. As long as raids maintained a largely symbolic

role-terror and repression within increasingly restive working class

immigrant communities, but no real impacts on the ability to acquire

labor(beyond decreasing its cost), the state was willing to make

gestures to keep the anti-immigrant movement within its electoral

compact. The McCain candidacy is a stunning indication that both parties

are lining up behind their bosses and challenging the anti-immigrant

movement(and its appeals for a return to herrenvolk democracy) for

dominance within the state. The question that needs to be asked is-what

happens when(as is happening now) this movement loses its access to the

halls of power-when it sees that international capital will not allow(in

the absence of an insurgency that seizes back the state), the

reassertion of old forms of herrenvolk democracy. This image of roiling

conflict beneath the surface-different forces driving the state-and the

state in motion, offers a very different vision for the future than that

of the strong liberal state offered by the reviewers.

The reviewers pose a false dichotomy between antifascist work and “draw

lines between extremes (i.e. friends and enemies), but then use those

lines to attack the middle, i.e. the state and capital and political

moderates, in order to mobilize a mass base along the lines of our

politics” while failing to substantially demonstrate how these two

activities are separable. The current struggles around immigration draw

this out well. Our own work in Portland, and recent experiences in

neighborhoods in Maricopa County, Arizona, has demonstrated that to

organize around immigrant rights is not possible without taking account

of the movement organizing and struggling on the other side of the state

(see A Visit to the Portland Gun Show

bringtheruckus.org

)

The leaves a question that begs to be asked in light of the reviewer’s

spurring to attack the state, capital, and political moderates-if an

attack by the left on the state and its institutions succeeded, bringing

about its failure(or more likely at this time, it collapsed under its

own contradictions), would the left be able to withstand the forces

organized to its right? This is a real and serious question, and its

implications can be seen played out in various parts of the globe right

now, as the collapse and failure of both the left and bourgeois

democracy has demonstrated frightening and tragic potentials.

Liberal Democracy’s Assumed Stability?

There are two more assumptions underlying the review that I’d like to

draw out in this response. The assertion that a US fascism is a

long-term prospect, and the mandate then, to attack the middle, the

state, and capital, assumes that of the two camps(the fascist right and

the state and capital) opposing us the State and Capital are the nearest

and most likely threat.

If carbon trading as a response to ecological collapse, the failure to

inject stability into a sinking world economy, a collapsing dollar,

skyrocketing food prices and inflation, and increasingly frequent

demonstrations of utter ineptitude by nation states in the face of

natural disasters are a measure of whats to come, bourgeouis democracy

holds little likelihood of successfully mitigating the numerous (and

cascading) contradictions whirling towards its center. At least not in

the form it holds now. This starkly poses the question of who is likely

to benefit (or prepared to benefit) from its crises? If the breadth of

debate over immigration is any measure, the left doesn’t hold much

compared to the capacity and power of the far right in posing a

challenge to that state in the current moment.

The reviewers admonition to draw lines and attack the middle holds

echoes of the German Communist Party’s line in the 20s and early 30s in

response to the rising power of the National Socialist German Worker’s

Party. In a fatal misjudgement, the Party maintained the priority was to

“Fight the social fascists”(social democrats) as the NSDP was considered

too fringe and extreme to be taken seriously.

We’d do well to study that historic mistake and the consequences for the

international communist movement.

Response to Bring the Ruckus: Four Points

Don Hamerquist

9/9/2008

I was interested and encouraged by the BTR discussion of fascism and

would like to respond to some of the criticisms of my positions that it

includes. I’m happy to see a critical discussion of these issues and

hope that my continuing disagreements promote further exchanges without

obscuring the substantial areas of agreement. I expect to be corrected

if I misunderstand or distort arguments or concepts or in any way

misrepresent the views that I don’t accept. I’m a little embarrassed by

how wordy my piece has become, particularly since it only covers a few

of the issues.

To the extent the discussion focuses on work priorities and current

tactical possibilities for BTR, I don’t have much to offer. I have

argued for an emphasis on anti-fascist work at various times in the

past, but it was related to the specific political circumstances. I

don’t believe that anti fascist mass work should always be pivotal or

that it has some revolutionary potential that can’t be developed in

other ways. It is not right to make a fetish of this area of work – nor

of any other for that matter.

That said, I do think that the contradictions and conflicts associated

with the accelerating globalization of capital will make fascism

increasingly relevant to every area of political activity. This calls

for a serious treatment of neo-fascisms on a strategic and theoretical

level that will undoubtedly include an increased general priority on

street-level anti fascist organizing. However, in my opinion, this is

neither the essence nor the extent of the issue.

I’ve loosely organized this piece around four short citations from the

BTR discussion. I deal with them in the order they appeared in the

material, making only minimal attempts to explore their interconnection

and intending no ranking of their relative significance. I’m emphasizing

passages that will sharpen differences, realizing that this doesn’t take

adequate account of other passages and arguments that temper and

condition them.

1. “(Hamerquist’s) …argument that Black Nationalism could develop into

fascism, for example, is not plausible.”

The estimate of “Black Nationalism” and the consideration of the

potential for fascist developments within the U.S. Black population are

distinct issues and should be kept that way: I neither argue nor believe

that Black Nationalism will develop into fascism or that nationalist

movements against imperialist oppression were seed beds for fascism.

That position is part of the left fatalism and pessimism which, more

commonly, finds Stalin and the Soviet bloc, or whatever it is that China

has become, to be the necessary culmination of the working class

communist movement.

The re-emergence of U.S. Black Nationalism in the sixties, far from

misdirecting the progressive movement in a reactionary direction,

impelled a major breakthrough towards internationalism and solidarity

with anti capitalist and anti imperialist struggles that were erupting

around the world. The Black Nationalist movement shook the implicit

assumption that the attitudes and activities of the white segment of the

working class would be the decisive issues in the revolutionary process

and transformed the U.S political movements of the period in an

overwhelmingly positive fashion. The impact was not simply through a

quantitative radicalizing. An important byproduct of the Black

Nationalist emphasis on autonomy and self determination was its

challenge to the structures and attitudes within the left that

replicated and reproduced capitalist hegemony.

As the trend towards capitalist globalization has accelerated,

revolutionary nationalist anti imperialism has become an increasingly

hollow shell and its potential as a vehicle of struggle against

capitalist power is rapidly shrinking. It has been unable to effectively

counter the neo-colonial response it has elicited from capital and has

fractured into a demoralized constituency topped off with an array of

warlords, factions, and elites competing for subordinate places at the

capitalist table and/or initiating violent authoritarian projects with

fascist implications. The partial victories the revolutionary

nationalist movement won, in fact and in perception, are emerging as

obstacles to future struggles.

The entire process is not just a collection of temporary setbacks that

might be reversed. It is a necessary consequence of the qualitatively

changing terrain for class struggle and provides additional evidence of

the need for changed categories of analysis and new revolutionary

strategies. However, the fact remains that it is not Black Nationalism

or revolutionary anti-imperialism that leads to fascism, but their

failures. The disintegration of revolutionary anti-imperialism, not its

success, has contributed to the emergence of a cynical, alienated, and

demoralized constituency for fascist movements among Black people in

this country. I see ideological and organizational initiatives to

mobilize this increasingly marginalized and declassed constituency in a

fascist direction. The actual issue between myself and some of the BTR

commentators is whether this particular potential for fascism is

effectively negated by the unique history and institutional structure of

Black oppression and white supremacy in this country. Clearly we

disagree on this estimate. I am quite willing to provide evidence and

examples to support my view, but at this point it is probably enough to

just note the disagreement.

The authors explicitly discount the relevance of fascist political

tendencies elsewhere in the post-colonial non-white world — for example

in Africa where many regimes and opposition movements have clearly

fascist attributes – and restrict their dismissal of the potential for

non-white fascism to this country. This is an important aspect of the

American exceptionalism that runs through the entire discussion. I find

this stance increasingly problematic on most questions, including the

future significance of the institution of white skin privilege, but will

only touch on it in this piece.

Since they believe that in the U.S.; “…it is inevitable that any fascist

program will be white supremacist…”, they focus on whether any non-white

U.S fascist tendency might coalesce a unified, and presumably white

supremacist, fascist movement. This is an odd argument, long on

assumptions and short on evidence, that doesn’t deal with my actual

position. Certainly I think that unity between Black and ‘white’ fascist

tendencies is unlikely – but no more unlikely than unity between Black

fascists and non-fascists. Accordingly, I agree that any conceivable

mass fascist development in this country, including in the Black

community will probably “…quickly turn murderous”. I can’t see how that

makes it less important, “short-lived”, or of merely “tactical”

significance.

Following Luxemburg I think that fascism is the ‘barbaric’ response to

the apparent triumph of capital on a world scale, a response that is

increasingly unlikely to develop unified and coherent social movements

embodied in relatively stable social orders. However, I don’t think that

the absence such a unifying trajectory qualitatively limits the

strategic importance of fascist movements, non-white or not.

2. “Further, the cross- class alliance that makes up the ‘White Race’

has historically brought the white working class together with the

ruling class, making a fascist anti-capitalist upsurge unlikely. That’s

why Germany gets the Brownshirts, but the U.S. gets KKK”.

Before it is possible to argue from historical parallels — as this

excerpt does — we must be sure both that the historical facts are

accurately presented and that the social circumstances haven’t

qualitatively changed. Here I want to make a few comments on the

accuracy of the implied history, leaving aside most of the issues

concerning the changing relevance of this history. I hope the narrow

response does not obscure broader implications.

On the first sentence:

This white cross-class bloc notion is overstated and too simplistic an

explanation for the past historical periods when it was a little more

applicable. Beyond this, even if the complexities of actual history are

not given proper weight, positing a general tendency for white workers

to align with ruling class interests in no way excludes the potential

for significant fractures within the overall tendency. And, when such

polarizations occur, as they have and will, there is no inherent reason

why one of the poles cannot be essentially fascist in character.

U.S. history is complex and contradictory and the cross class bringing

“together” is much more conditional and tenuous than this passage

suggests. There has always been white working class resistance to such a

class alliance, a resistance based in their contradictory collective

experiences — as objects of capitalist exploitation and as subjects of

significant, but insecure, political and economic privileges. This

resistance has had reactionary outcomes, consider some aspects of the

Civil War. It has had more progressive outcomes, consider the eight hour

day movement and the industrial organizing campaign of the thirties.

Many complex examples could be developed from more concrete historical

examples: consider the white racist reaction to the threat of Black

labor competition and the use of Black military units during major

radical and anti-capitalist class confrontations such as those of the

Western Federation of Miners in Northern Idaho and the failed steel

organizing campaign following WWI.

On the second sentence: The sharp contrast implied by; “…Germany gets

the Brownshirts, but the U.S gets the KKK”; is historically

questionable. Prior to his primativist phase, John Zerzan wrote a piece

on the post WWI Indiana Klan that exuded surprise over the extent to

which this Klan was radical and pro-working class. Zerzan was clearly

ignorant of the magnitude and militance of the radicalism of the

contemporary European fascists which might have reduced his astonishment

at finding similar attitudes in U.S. reactionary movements. This passage

from the BTR discussion is the other side of the Zerzan mistake. It pays

too little attention to the elements of autonomy and radicalism that

prevented the Indiana KKK – and will prevent modern reactionary

groupings aiming at building a base among white workers – from always

being pliable, dependably pro-capitalist, adjuncts of ruling class

power.

Historical patterns of rule and resistance can be correctly described –

although I don’t believe they have been in this instance – and there is

still an important issue concerning how and to what extent this history

is relevant. What has happened does not always illuminate what can and

will happen. I believe that the circumstances of class domination have

changed qualitatively in this country and that the national cross-class

alliances and accommodations that were important to capitalist hegemony

are changing in character and significance. Capital has less reliance on

the institutions and practices that have traditionally maintained

political stability in the imperial center, notably including those

involved in this particular white privilege “cross-class alliance”.

Decisive ruling class fractions in this country increasingly see its

benefits as being outweighed by its costs, particularly the costs of

diverting attention and resources from more urgent and bigger

contemporary challenges to global capital.

3. “What’s the difference between fascism as a movement and in power?

Hannah Arendt argues pretty convincingly (regarding nazism) that there

really isn’t one.”… “Arendt argues that the Nazis and Stalin actually

became more radical in power.”

So how does Stalin come into this discussion? I have some thoughts on

how “actually existing socialism” might be relevant to fascist

potentials, but they don’t support any minimalist view of the importance

of fascism.

Laying that aside, the initial question is perplexing. The differences

between fascism when it is a movement and when it is in control of a

state seem obvious to me. They provide one overriding reason why it is

important to confront fascism before it gains state power. In one case

you are competing for a constituency, ideologically and programmatically

(and sometimes militarily) while contending with the reality of

capitalist state power and cultural/ideological hegemony. In the other

you are attempting to overthrow a militarized state structure animated

by a totalitarian ideology. For an example of the difference, you don’t

wage a culture war against a fascist state unless you want to be dead,

but this would normally be an essential part of the struggle against a

fascist organizing thrust.

I suspect the real point here is not this question, but the notion that

the Nazis became “…more radical in power”. Notwithstanding Arendt, I

don’t think this is the case. The issue comes down to what is meant by

‘radical’. Arendt’s conception of radicalism emphasizes the repression

and regimentation that culminated in massive national, cultural, and

racial genocide and world war. From this vantage point, the Hitler of

Mein Kampf is less radical than Hitler in power (and Stalin more radical

than his Bolshevik predecessors).

However, without in any way minimizing the radicalism of German state

fascism, we can’t adopt this analysis. Arendt discounts the crucial

element — the anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist aspects of totalitarian

radicalism. When these are included, there is no way that Stalin appears

more “radical” than revolutionary Russia and the Bolsheviks. More to the

point, every previous fascist regime has moved away from the radical

anti-bourgeois/anti-capitalist elements of the movement which brought it

to power. In Germany these elements were very substantial and their

influence was ended by the physical liquidation of a major section of

the NSDAP a few months after the Nazi capture of the German state. There

is no way that the NSDAP in power is more “radical” on these crucial

issues without its substantial Strasser/Rohm wing – although it arguably

might have been more reactionary and genocidal.

This is an important point. The left has obvious and increasing

difficulties articulating and organizing around a clear and consistent

liberatory anti capitalist alternative. Our failures to develop a

popular case for social revolution provides a cautionary context for

looking at the debates within modern fascist movements about the

significance of the failure of Nazism to complete its “Second

(anti-capitalist) Revolution”. The danger in the way the question of

‘radicalism’ is handled in this part of the BTR discussion is that it

discounts the potential challenge from the non-state transnational

fascist movements that we are likely to face, minimizing their ability

to provide plausible ideological and programmatic alternatives for

either Black or white working class constituencies. I suspect that this

attitude also questions the genuineness of neo-fascist radicalism,

regarding it as more posture than principle. These amount to dangerous

‘history is on our side’ assumptions and, particularly when the

discussion is not limited artificially to this country, the absence of

logical reasons to accept them and of supporting evidence for them is

pretty equally evident.

“As long as the white working class in the U.S. has access to the state

(such as via the herrenvolk democracy before 1965 and through various

white privileges today), it has no need to opt for fascism:”

Of course, I noticed the caveats that immediately follow this passage in

the text. However, it is hard to take them seriously since they apply to

eventualities that have previously been dismissed as remote

possibilities in passages such as the following:

“An American fascism, then, is a long-term prospect at best. There’s a

greater likelihood of the return of herrenvolk democracy and white

standing in the U.S. than there is of fascism.”

So I will deal the issues of estimate and analysis in this passage as

they stand.

Before getting to my disagreements, I want to indicate my understanding

of some ambiguous terms that are employed; “access”, “state”, “need” and

“opt”. I realize I could be wrong about the intended meanings and it

could make a difference. I doubt that the authors view the U.S. state as

one where real power is shared between the working and capitalist class.

That is, I doubt that they believe that the U.S. is not actually a class

state. So where this passage says “white working class”…” access to the

state”, I’m reading it as meaning access to the government. This is the

language used at other points in the discussion. I also don’t think that

access is the best description for this relationship between white

workers and the government. Perhaps ‘participation’ would be more

appropriate, particularly if it were understood that this participation

is not formal, but part of an institutionalized process for distributing

selective material concessions.

I’m reading the assertion that white workers will “have no need to opt

for fascism”, to mean that they will not choose this option under

current or forseeable conditions. I think the issue is not one of

objective necessity, but of subjective inclination and volition. As I

have said, fascism would be a polarizing issue among these allegedly

incorporated white workers, and they will not be opting for or against

it as a unified subject with a common perception of need. White workers

can provide an important terrain for fascist organizing initiatives even

if these are selectively directed towards particular subgroups and only

have potential to take root among minority fractions.

Continuing on the issue of terminology, I don’t accept the repeated

reference to the “white working class” as if it were a political

subject, either one which is – or is not — potentially revolutionary. In

fact, there is no white working class. The working class is

multinational or transnational with a small and diminishing minority of

privileged white (particularly white male) members. Working class

shouldn’t be defined racially, ethnically, or in terms of relative

privileges – although these factors must all be included in a concrete

understanding of the U.S. segment of the working class.

Beyond this, there are definite and growing problems in looking at class

through the lens of nations and states. It is a short step from positing

a nationally defined working class to accepting the limits of trade

union reformism and parliamentary social democracy and reifying the most

invidious ‘border fence’ forms of “competition within the working

class”. The conception of a national U.S. working class abstracts from

the objective reality of massive and growing movements of workers across

borders and doesn’t place proper priority on concrete steps to promote

and develop working class internationalism. (I believe that my position

on this question is consistent with the white skin privilege analysis

which the authors clearly hold. I doubt whether we will wind up with

significant disagreements on this point.)

To clarify some differences with the approach taken in this citation, I

want to locate the general argument of the authors in the array of left

positions on fascism Clearly they reject conceptions of fascism that

blur any distinction between it and capitalist repression. They appear

to also reject more sophisticated variants of the same position that

posit a capitalist tendency, preference, or ‘drive’ towards fascism that

is identified with the program of a particular ruling class fraction.

Although it can be embodied in very different political approaches, from

the most reformist popular front stage strategies to the most sectarian

“class against class” postures, this latter position has been the

dominant left conception since fascism emerged as an ideology and mass

movement. The more or less official ‘communist’ position treats fascism

as a capitalist policy option – a potential form of rule — often

forgetting to add that traditional communist doctrine placed it is a

policy of last resort, adopted out of strategic weakness where and when

capitalism was in crisis and faced with a serious revolutionary working

class political challenge.

There are many features and problems with this position that don’t

require mention here, but one fact is relevant: The ‘option’ for

fascism, if it is chosen, will be taken by the ruling class, or some

faction of it, acting according to the array of ruling class perceptions

of what is required to maintain power. Disgruntled white workers might

be involved as foot soldiers in a fascist organizing thrust, but it

would not be their ‘option’.

Apparently the authors are arguing that fascism has no potential within

the ruling class because the viability of white supremacy makes it

unnecessary and that any potential for a mass white autonomous fascist

movement is ruled out by the persistence of the same system. (As

mentioned above, a non-white potential base for fascism is also excluded

— apparently as an article of faith in U.S. exceptionalism.)

In the mid seventies, some of us in STO agreed with the first

proposition: so long as the institutions of white supremacy functioned

within the working class, the ruling class would have no need to “opt”

for fascism. The early STO position was rather quickly and summarily

rejected. It contained an element of truth, but presented it in an

abstract and one-sided manner that didn’t recognize the autonomous and

radical side of fascism, treating it only as a secondary technique of

capitalist. This de-emphasized the potential for an autonomous fascist

movement to impose itself on capitalism.More practically, it also

de-emphasized the problems of working in conditions where such

autonomous fascist movements existed and posed a real threat.

The position capsulized in this citation holds that the white section of

the working class has no need to “opt” for fascism so long as it is

privileged. This is significantly different from the early STO position

because it implies that white workers understand and accept their

privileges and will not see through or beyond them. STO regarded white

privileges as real material benefits, but never discounted the potential

for individual and collective repudiation of the system that generated

them. White privileges didn’t eliminate revolutionary potentials among

white workers, they provided limits and barriers that must be confronted

if these potentials were to be realized. We maintained that white

workers should and could be organized to act in their class interests.

However, if white workers have the potential to break with capital to

the left, the possibility for them to break to the right can hardly be

excluded. Indeed, since such a break to the right might simply be an

extension of the ideology of white supremacy, it could be seen as

relatively more likely.

There have been a number of revolutionary strategies that discount

revolutionary potentials among white workers generally and view

privileged white workers as ruling class auxiliaries. Since its central

point is that white workers are satisfied with their privileged position

and that these privileges are stable, the BTR position leads in the same

direction although I presume that they would be reluctant to arrive at

the same destination. However, the same estimate that minimizes the

potential for a fascist movement among white workers actually applies

even more against any potential for a libratory revolutionary movement

among them. Applying the logic underlying the simple argument presented

in this citation, “…access to the state…” — “no need to opt for

fascism”, one might just as well say, access to the state… no need to

opt for social revolution; or access to the state… no need to engage in

class struggle. We know the political tendencies that have taken the

white privilege concept to exactly these conclusions. I assume no one in

BTR does or there would be more of you up here in the woods wondering

what happened to the prairie fires.

To get into these issues a bit deeper, the selection maintains that

white workers had access to the state (government) “…via the herrenvolk

democracy before 1965 and from various white privileges today”. How

valid is the concept of herrenvolk democracy; and what happened in 1965?

I have to admit the term, herrenvolk democracy, is new to me and I will

rely completely on the definition that the authors provide:

“In the U.S., the herrenvolk democracy (democracy for the master race,

tyranny for everyone else) has historically performed the functions of a

fascist state but with a democratic veneer.”

I think that this notion of democracy for the master race, tyranny for

everyone else has only marginal applicability to the U.S. It’s doubtful

if it even applies to South Africa – perhaps it fits Rhodesia, pre

ZANU/Andy Young. Presumably the “master race” is white. Since the

reference is to master, we can overlook the fact that white women had

minimal formal or substantive democratic access to government in the

U.S. until quite recently. In what sense then was there “democracy” for

male white workers?

My view has always been that the U.S. is a bourgeois democracy; i.e. a

system based on democracy for the bourgeoisie and something a bit

different and decidedly less participatory or representative for

everyone else, including in almost all cases, white male workers.

Possibly there were some localized situations where there was

effectively ‘democracy’ for all white males, maybe during the various

genocidal operations against the native population. Normally, however,

there was bourgeois democracy, where white workers might be privileged

with some minimal voice in their continued exploitation and some

possibility to participate in the repression and oppression of people

outside of their cohert, but little more.

Moving to the related second part of the phrase – “tyranny for everyone

else” – I have to object again. I’m no fan of the constitutional

parliamentary system anywhere including this country, but it did not and

does not embody tyranny for all except white males. This is particularly

the case if this tyranny is seen as the functional equivalent of a

fascist state, as the authors maintain it should be. Fascist states are

totalitarian and militarized and, while they may utilize a plebiscitary

pseudo-democracy at times, they oppose parliamentarism. This is just not

an adequate or accurate picture of U.S. society and history prior to

1965.

Then, what about 1965? I was alive then and more or less politically

active. It wasn’t a particularly calm period, there was the Malcolm

assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin escalation, the L.A. riots, the

invasion of the Dominican Republic; and – various parliamentary gestures

to the Black movement; the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Bills. But I

missed any watershed event that marked an epoch changing passage from

herrenvolk democracy to something else based on “various white

privileges”.

I’m afraid the authors must be looking at the extension of the franchise

to Black people in the U.S. South as the key change – although I’m ready

to be corrected if this is mistaken. The voting rights bill was a

byproduct of a significant struggle, but at the time it had minimal

importance other than providing some slight additional support for

reformist perspectives in the movement. Its continuing impact has been

ambiguous and in no way marks a change in methods of capitalist rule. To

argue differently is to place far too much significance on the hollow

formal parliamentary aspects of bourgeois democracy. Exactly what I fear

was also done with the notion of “democracy for the master race” in the

other half of the definition of herrenvolk democracy.

This mode of analysis doesn’t enlighten U.S. history. While I can see

some instances where it might apply, it is nowhere near an adequate

explanation of the historical system of subordination and domination in

this country. It doesn’t help us understand southern and western

populism, the New Deal, the Eight Hour Day struggle, the Seattle General

Strike, the racist socialist government in Milwaukee, etc. etc.

I question the relationship of institutionalized white skin privilege to

the potential for fascism as the issue is presented in the above

citation, but my differences probably go further than that. I think that

it is necessary to generally reassess the role of institutionalized

white skin privilege and reevaluate the strategies in which the concept

is central. I will attempt to begin this in the remainder of the piece.

Since the concept of white skin privilege is part of a number of quite

different strategies, not to mention much left conventional wisdom, some

of which rejects a working class perspective on capitalism and

revolution, I want to be clear that the points I make are with reference

to the strategic approach associated with STO. I believe BTR has a

generally similar approach.

Historically, white skin privilege in the U.S. functioned to incorporate

white workers within the hegemony of capital by treating them as a

privileged interest group even when this resulted in limitations on

labor competition and kept short and middle term wages higher than they

might otherwise have been. This institution was central to some aspects

of the class struggle and the development of U.S. capitalism that

distinguished it from other capitalisms. With some notable and temporary

exceptions, the U.S. labor movement has been pro-capitalist, divided by

internal competitions and infected with a guild exclusivity to the point

where it doesn’t present the most elementary alternative vision of

society. There has been no labor party and no continuing social

democratic tendency capable of contesting for control of the government

or for basic structural reform.

On the other hand there has been more social mobility in this country

than in other capitalist countries. From before the civil war to nearly

WWI, white workers could realistically expect to acquire property and

possibly leverage themselves or their children out of the working class

into the petty bourgeoisie or better. This potential provided a

qualitative aspect to the privileges of white workers that augmented the

quantitative advantages they also received.

For the better part of two centuries the social base provided by the

white skin privilege was seen as crucial to long term capitalist

stability and the ruling class made significant concessions to maintain

it. These concessions were double edged and complex. While there were

economic costs involved in privileging white workers, there were

benefits for capital as well. The white labor mobility expedited the

advance of Taylorism and Fordism, allowing and even impelling U.S.

capitalism to develop labor productivity and extend its internal mass

market more rapidly than its national competitors. This, in turn,

increased its capacity to provide significant tangible differential

benefits for white male workers and their families.

So long as capitalist development did not supercede the division of the

world between oppressor and oppressed nations, and so long as “actually

existing socialism” provided some semi-plausible comprehensive

alternative to it, this system worked fairly well in this country.

However, it obviously was not the only way that capitalist societies,

including this one, contained and incorporated the class struggle and

for some time it has not appeared to be any more viable than other

methods. It seems to me that its unique role in this country depended on

unique, and, I believe, transitory and temporary features of national

development.

Things have changed. Capitalist production is effectively globalized. It

has no ‘outside’. Maintaining political equilibrium in particular

countries, including this one, is increasingly subordinated to

requirements for profit maximization and political equilibrium in a

world capitalist system, a system which is no longer in any sense

‘white’ or even Euro-American. The loyalty of U.S. white workers is no

longer worth as much and less will be paid for it. The social democratic

and ‘communist’ challenge to global capitalism are increasingly defanged

and incorporated, reducing the potential risks of incorporating

potential challenges within the hegemonic framework of capital through

social democratic parliamentarism. This further undermines any incentive

for the ruling class to subsidize white supremacy.

These developments in the global capitalist system have not occurred

without generating popular resistance that is increasingly costly to

contain. There are other squeaky wheels for the concession/repression

apparatus of capital – often ones that present much more pressing risks

than any possible domestic white working class insurgency. These

challenges develop from the elements of secular crisis in the system (

the BTR discussion serves us poorly by avoiding this topic because it

has been the site of so many left mistakes.) and have enlarged the

terrain of operations and expedited the training of cadres for important

neo-fascist movements which both directly and indirectly impact the

politics of this country. Ruling class segments are aware of these

realities and ruling class policy can best be understood as a response

to them rather than a mindless demonstration of military force and

financial cupidity encased in nostalgia for white power.

The concept of working class white privilege has always been susceptible

to a simplifying determinism which assumes that the reality of a

privileged position will be automatically reflected in a consciousness

of being privileged and in a sense of superiority and entitlement to

such privileges that white workers will fight to protect. This view is

present in parts of the BTR discussion. For example; ‘access’ to

government is translated too easily to support for government and the

possibility of a felt ‘need’ for basic change is eliminated by the fact,

not the consciousness, of being privileged.

White workers can feel they are superior and thus deserving of

privileges, but not recognize that they have them. It is not only

possible, it is common to find that the recipients of privileges feel

that they are actually the victims of discrimination, and that groups

with greater access to government are more critical of it and cynical

about it. Thus the formula: privileged status equals cross-class

alliance equals support for one’s own capitalism and ruling class is

frequently disrupted in real life.

White workers in this country are no longer going to be fully buffered

from the impacts of international competition and that is going to

undermine their allegiance to the old system of rule. Whatever

differential access white workers have to government, the benefits that

result will be reduced. If the privileged sector think and feel left out

and left behind – not so privileged and maybe even discriminated against

— even when these may not be objectively true; it will shatter their

compact with capital and open the potential for fascist developments as

well as more hopeful challenges to the system.

The question between me and BTR, I think, is whether we are facing such

a tipping point in the struggle or whether it is only a remote future

potential. I think the former. It seems that they are more concerned

with the potential for the administrative resurrection of some

reactionary white nationalist regime which I can’t see having any life

outside of the fevered imagination of a Buchanan or Tancredo. In any

case, such a reactionary nightmare about a betrayed heroic and idyllic

past would be the stuff of fascist movements. If it is viable, the

commitment of white workers to the current system is not.

Apologies again for the wordiness and the lack of clarity.

--Don Hamerquist