Antifascist Former Resistance Fighters Netherlands
Fascism is an elusive concept. It is commonly used as an insult for politics one dislikes. Most definitions do not address the nature of fascism, but the presentation of it. The most concise definition was given by Georgi Dimitrov in 1935: “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” Fascism is also an ideology and there is an organisation behind it. As an ideology and organisation it can take different forms depending on the situation.
Fascism is a tool created for the purpose of defending the interests of a specific fraction of capital―finance capital―from threats to its economic dominance.
Finance capital is not only the originator of fascism, but also of imperialism.[1] This should inform both our understanding of the relationship between fascism and imperialism, and the evolution of fascism historically.
Since fascism as a political tool of finance capital arises in crisis, it should be seen as reactive in nature.
Fascism arose first in Italy in the 1920s and next across the industrialized world throughout the 1930s. Winston Churchill praised the efforts of Benito Mussolini in crushing the militant workers’ movement. Likewise, German bankers and industrialists, British, and American business interests all gladly supported Hitler’s rise to power. German finance capital was threatened by an economic crisis of overproduction and a political crisis of worker’s revolution. Hitler restarted profit accumulation at the expense of living standards briefly, but only for a couple of years, after which war became an economic necessity. It was only at this stage that the other imperialist powers truly turned against Nazi Germany.
The practice of fascism is remarkably close to the practice of colonialism. British colonial practices and racial segregation in the southern states of the US actually served as guiding examples for Nazi Germany in constructing its repressive apparatus. After World War II, the exploitation of the global periphery through debt bondage intensified, but so did the threat of (communist-led) anticolonial revolution. The main threat to finance capital no longer originated from militant workers’ movements in the industrialized imperialist countries, but in the global periphery that was increasingly becoming the most important source of profits for finance capital. As a result, the form of fascism evolved as well, but remained a weapon of finance capital. One could say that the repressive apparatus of colonialism was brought to the home countries in the 1930s, adapted into what we call fascism, and then exported back into the (former) colonies.
The Cold War saw the rise of fascist regimes in non-industrialized countries such as South Korea, the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan, Indonesia, South Vietnam, Cuba, Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay, to name only a few. All these regimes were brought to power with the full support of the US in the face of socialist or socialist-aligned popular movements which formed a direct threat against the interests of finance capital. Widespread violent repression of union organizing, leftist parties, using detention, torture and even mass slaughter was present in all those regimes for this purpose. In some of these countries, liberal democracies existed beforehand, but the liberal political system no longer facilitated the effective subjugation of the working class. Of course, all of these repressive policies were combined with economic policies which made the countries more open to Western capital penetration.
As the (socialist) USSR was destroyed, fascism (Ideologically) continued to exist (under the surface). The rehabilitation of several fascists took place in former Soviet countries, for example: the fascist leader Antonescu in Romania, Nazi Ante Pavelic in Croatia, head of state and collaborator Riso in Slovakia and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. One recent example is Syria where the ‘’rebels’’ who are in fact ‘’islamic’’ fascists overthrew the Syrian government (of Bashar-al Assad).
Meanwhile, other threats to finance capital have arisen. These threats come from political movements, forces who are pursuing an independent (not necessarily socialist) path, based on economic nationalism. This comes in the form of the nationalization of natural resources of governments such as the Russian government, the Shia revolutionary Iranian government or the Bolivarian socialist Venezuelan and Bolivian governments.
To push back against these forces and regain access to those natural resources, violent gangs and far right political forces were used to unsuccessfully overthrow the Venezuelan government and successfully overthrow the Bolivian government. For a year, Bolivia was ruled by a violent, pro-capital military dictatorship. Similar forces were used in Russia and Iran, but those societies have proven too united and too stable for these forces to take root.
Instead, proxy regimes are used to attack Russia and Iran. Both Ukraine and the Zionist entity known as Israel are repressive military regimes which engage in hard-handed repression of the most militant anticapitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-Western populations within the territories they control. Both the native populations of Palestine and of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics have been subjected to kidnappings, extrajudicial detention, torture, extrajudicial executions and military assault by the Zionist and Kiev regimes.
Additionally, Israel serves the dual purpose of preventing the unification of the Arab world by being a wedge in its heart. The balkanization of the Arab world keeps it both exploitable by finance capital and prevents it from forming an entity powerful enough to pose a challenge to imperialist hegemony.
The launching of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine marked the beginning of a new era in world politics, where for the first time in decades, an effective effort to roll back the influence of Western imperialism has been made. A new era of world politics was opened on February 24th, 2022. This new era is marked by economic and geopolitical challenges to Western imperialism, and thereby finance capital. Although this is a hopeful development for the future of humanity to be able to evolve beyond imperialism, this resurgence of an effective challenge to the imperialist order is met with a resurgence of finance capital’s standard tool in times of crisis: fascism. That means that in the coming years, the struggle shall intensify, along with all its tragic consequences for human suffering.
Since imperialism had become more vital to finance capital than it had been before WWII, fascism evolved from a tool for maintaining class relations within developed capitalist countries into a tool for maintaining imperialism. Therefore, there is no such thing as a fight against fascism without a fight against capitalism and imperialism (and the fight for socialism). Since imperialism is the maintenance of parasitic economic relations between imperialist core and periphery at the behest of finance capital, there is only one geopolitical bloc that fits this definition, and that is the West. Neither the state of Russia, nor of China, nor of Iran are subordinated to finance capital in their countries, nor can it be plausibly argued that their international economic relations are parasitic; their economic relations with other countries do not bring down living standards in those countries.
The main instruments of imperialism are NATO and its proxies, so to fight against fascism, it is imperative to fight for the dismantling of NATO and for its defeat in its imperialist wars. Wherever US influence is strong but threatened, the fascist threat looms strong; without the power of the US, neither the fascist militias in Ukraine such as Azov, Aidar, C14, Pravy Sektor and the like, nor the modern-day Einsatzgruppen committing genocide in Gaza would be able to operate in any meaningful capacity.
Within the Western countries, this means that the fight against fascism primarily consists of uniting all forces opposed to NATO to push back against this machine of imperialism. Fascism can only be defeated by destroying the system that feeds it and gives it life.[2]
Outside of the Western countries, the countries of the world must stand together to destroy their domestic forces of fascism that are instrumentalized by the West to overthrow anti-imperialist, sovereignist, economic nationalist governments. Venezuela has recently been at the forefront of this struggle. In 2024, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has taken the initiative to organize an Antifascist International for the purpose of uniting antifascist forces of the world. This international is based on the understanding that antifascism is inextricably linked to anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism and anticapitalism. This collective front must not only fight fascism politically, ideologically and in the neighbourhoods, but also use digital space (for example the social media) and technological tools to counter information manipulation and ongoing multidimensional psychological warfare.
Additionally, the comrades from Korea’s People’s Democracy Party have taken the initiative of setting up the World Anti-Imperialist Platform (WAP), uniting anti-imperialist forces around the world. The AFVN has already been present at this International in Venezuela and is a signatory to the WAP’s Paris Declaration, and continues to be part of both entities. Going forward, it would only be appropriate if the FIR were to join both these initiatives as well, thereby connecting itself to the forces that are at the forefront of the struggle against fascism and fascism’s parents: finance capital and imperialism.
Notes
[1] Finance capital―the fraction of capital that is in the business of creating credit rather than creating commodities, which is the business of industrial capital, or circulating commodities, which is the business of commercial capital.
[2] In many cases, this would even include rightist forces that are wrongly portrayed in left-liberal discourse as fascist. All who oppose the machine of Western imperialism are antifascist, whether they know it or not.
