Allan Todd writes:
“The Far Right and creeping fascism … [are] rooted in the
capitalist crisis and the political polarisation that are eroding
the foundations of ‘moderate’ centrist liberal-parliamentary
rule across the world.”
The quotation above is from System Crash – a book written by Neil Faulkner, and others, in 2021, which followed on from an earlier book on ‘creeping fascism.’ Essentially, that term denotes a distinction between old-style fascism, and today’s authoritarian right which nonetheless mainstreams many of the policies associated with outright fascism. Old-style fascists were easy to spot, as they tended to strut around in jackboots, wearing brown or black shirts. However, today’s creeping fascists instead strut around in smart suits and blue ties, wearing stupid grins. Whether old-style or new-style, one of the biggest dangers with fascism is not being able to recognise it when you see it – and, even when you do recognise it, not taking every step you can to block it and then roll it back. Fortunately, history provides many salutary lessons about how to confront the forces of fascism – including the serious political mistakes made by those who should have known better.
The Plot Against America
Before getting into history, however, it might be useful to recall Philip Roth’s 2004 novel, The Plot Against America.
Pic. 2 – Philip Roth’s novel: anticipating Trump’s rise to power?
In the novel, Roth imagined Roosevelt didn’t win the 1940 presidential election, losing instead to another real-life character: the far-right and antisemitic multi-millionaire populist, Charles Lindbergh. At the beginning of the novel, Lindbergh is portrayed, as he really was: a leading member of the America First Party. The story becomes fictional when – at the last minute – Lindbergh switches sides to get the Republican Party’s nomination. If ever there’s been a case of history imitating art, then surely – with Trump and Musk now loose in the White House – we must be living through just such an imitation right now.
Just Two Laws
With apologies to all those who love Doris Troy’s song, ‘Just One Look’ – with which The Hollies also had a hit, in 1964 – it’s important to remember, as Musk and Bannon repeatedly throw Nazi salutes, that the Nazi dictatorship essentially began quite legally, with just two laws. It was also established very quickly, and very easily – once Hitler had been legally-appointed as Chancellor.
Even though the Nazis’ share of the vote had dropped from 38% in July 1932, to 33% in November 1932 – whilst the Communists had gone up from 15% to 17% – Hitler was invited by the German elites, quite legally, to form a government in January 1933. A month later, on 27 February, the Reichstag Fire took place: a ‘provocation’ almost certainly arranged by the Nazis themselves.
Pic.3 – Using the law to destroy democracy from within
The very next day, Hitler responded by blaming the Communists, and then pushing through the so-called Reichstag Fire Decree (the Decree for the Protection of the People and State). This Decree gave the Nazis the power to temporarily suspend ALL the civil and political rights enshrined in the articles of the German Constitution: such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. The Decree also allowed the indefinite detention – without trial – of opponents and critics.
Then, less than a month after that Decree, Hitler and the Nazis used threats and physical intimidation to push through the Enabling Act – this gave them full emergency powers to rule, legally, by decree for 4 years, without needing to consult the German parliament. Rather like Trump’s ‘Executive Orders’? Thus, by what were technically just 2 ‘legal’ measures, Hitler and the Nazis had ended the freedoms ‘guaranteed’ by Germany’s Weimar Constitution. The Nazi dictatorship had begun – it was as easy as that for the Nazis to destroy democracy from within.
A lesson from history
Tragically, none of what happened in Germany after January 1933 should have come as a surprise – especially to those on the left. Leon Trotsky was just one of those warning what a serious and deadly danger the Nazis posed. In December 1931, as part of his campaign to get a United Front Against fascism, he issued this warning:
“Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left.”
The reason Trotsky felt it necessary to issue such a stark warning was because the leaders of the German Social Democrats (SPD)and the German Communists (KPD) refused to work together against the rising Nazi Party. The Communists even argued that the Social Democrats were ‘social fascists’ and therefore a BIGGER threat than Hitler and the Nazis! However, the leaderships of those two parties ignored Trotsky’s warnings – and, as they say, the rest is history.
Hierarchies of threats
While the KPD’s political assessment of the relative risks posed by the SPD and the Nazis must surely count as one of the most stupid conclusions ever reached, there were nonetheless some valid reasons for the Communist Party to be hugely critical of the SPD.
The problem was that the KPD leadership completely failed to apply commonsense, which should have led them to decide that the thing to do was to deal with the most serious threat first; then, once that had been dealt with, they could have moved on to the next one.
What makes their ‘thinking’ so surprising is that Lenin and the Bolsheviks in September 1917 – i.e., almost two months before the November Revolution which brought them to power – were also faced with two political opponents. On the one hand, there was Kerensky’s Provisional Government, which was refusing to take Russia out of the horrors of the First World War, and which was also refusing to carry out much-needed land reforms. However, the other – more immediate – threat came from General Kornilov, the C-in-C of Russia’s army, who was intent on carrying out a military coup against both the soviets and the Provisional Government.
When the Bolsheviks decided to help Kerensky defeat the attempted coup, some of their supporters questioned ‘supporting’ a political opponent. Lenin’s reply was straightforward: given that Kornilov, on his way to the capital with armed forces behind him, was clearly the most serious threat, revolutionaries should ‘support’ Kerensky – but only in the way that “a rope supports a hanging man.” Trotsky later came up with a similar analogy: when faced with two enemies – one with a loaded revolver and with their finger on the trigger; and another who’s asking you to swallow some poison – a sensible person deals with the most immediate problem first.
A ‘Nationalist’ International
WithTrump once again in the White House, he is yet again on the verge of breaking US constitutional law. Previously, of course, he had tried to do so on 6 January 2021, when he encouraged his most thuggish supporters to attack the Capitol Building – and the elected Congressional representatives who were in the building to ratify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
This time, however, the threat – both within the US and globally – is much more serious: because multi-billionaire Musk is openly funding far-right populists and even fascists around the world. In addition, he’s using his ownership of X/Twitter to push ‘fake news’ and creeping fascist ideas. One of the groups he’s supporting is Germany’s far-right AfD – a party with known Nazis in it. On a high turnout (almost 85% of the electorate), the AfD achieved their best-ever result so far, winning some 20% of the votes cast:
Pic.4 – The results of Germany’s recent general election
Musk has also openly spoken of his plans to interfere in UK politics: not just giving money to Farage’s latest political abomination, but also supporting the outright fascist who’s known as ‘Tommy Crybaby Robinson.’ In addition, Bannon – a far-right authoritarian who was Trump’s main political adviser in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections – is now back centre-stage in US politics. Like Musk, he now makes no attempt to hide his underlying sympathies for creeping fascism:
Bannon, of course, has long dreamed of forming what he has called a ‘Nationalist International.’ Although he and Musk seem to detest each other, the far right, unlike the left, are very good at holding their respective noses and working with far-right opponents they disagree with, in order to achieve certain common aims. Most of the leading Nazis detested each other, seeing each other as rivals for Hitler’s support – but it didn’t stop them implementing the Nazi dictatorship. Now, with Musk’s money and his control of social media behind them, far-right authoritarian populists have the political and financial resources to make the creation of such a creeping fascist International a reality.
Politics as chess
Those who are at least half-serious about chess know that you do not concede a single pawn to an opponent – unless you have a really ‘cunning plan.’ Yet there are those on the left who, while they are implacably opposed to creeping fascism, seem prepared to concede key/marginal seats to the far right – in order not to vote for any party they rightly oppose: even if that means letting a far-right candidate win. Shades of the KPD in Germany in the early 1930s, methinks!
With local elections coming up this year – and with the 2029 general election drawing ever nearer – the whole question of voting, or NOT voting, in key/marginal seats – may well prove to be a crucial element in blocking the rise of the far Right in the UK. The November 2024 elections in the US brought this issue to the fore: in the 7 crucial swing states, many Democrats – and young radicals to the left of them – understandably disappointed by the little that Kamala Harris was offering, largely abstained. What they, and the rest of the US – and the rest of the world – got was Trump. In 2020, when such young people turned out in force to vote in those swing states, they got rid of Trump. There is surely a useful lesson to take from those two presidential elections.
As Rebecca Solnit has said in relation to such seats:
“Voting isn’t a Valentine – it’s a chess move”
Pic.6 – Voting as one weapon in the arsenal against creeping fascism
Sure, Starmer’s version of New Labour is very – and increasingly – disappointing on a number of issues. But, with opinion polls putting Farage’s latest political business venture on similar percentages as both Labour and the Tories, surely, in the relatively few marginal seats, it’s better to vote for the lesser evil, than allow the far right to win even one extra seat? The key word being ‘LESSER’!
Urging voters in such seats to vote Labour – assuming Labour is best-placed to beat the far-right candidate – does not mean, in any way, encouraging or expressing faith in/support of Starmer’s party. Indeed it might of course be an independent left candidate who’s best placed to win. On the contrary, as Lenin advised, we should openly say that we’re giving Starmer’s party ‘support’ in such seats, only in the same way as a rope supports a hanging man. First: don’t run the risk of ending up with a Badenoch-Farage – or even worse, a Farage-Badenoch – coalition. Then we can focus all our attention on tackling Starmer’s version of neoliberalism.
A legitimate question
As Trump and Musk continue to strut about like demented goons, it’s worth remembering how easy it was for the Nazis to destroy democracy from within. These two far-right politicians are so admired by Farage that he is spending so much time in their company that he seems to have almost forgotten that he’s being paid £90,000 a year to represent the people of Clacton!
Pic.7 – Time for a United Front Against Facism
With Farage’s party riding high in recent opinion polls, it seems the right time to ask a ‘legitimate question’ – something that Farage (Trump’s little acolyte, who has often been described as the UK’s cheap ‘Poundland Trump’) seems to like so much. And the question is this:
Q: To what extent does he agree with Trump’s attacks on the US Constitution? And, if he supports his ‘big boy’ political hero in carrying out such attacks in the US, would he support similar steps in the UK, to take away what few democratic rights still remain to us?
Of course, only Farage can answer those questions. But given that – as was pointed out only recently – he can “lie faster than anyone can fact-check”, his answers might not be that truthful! Perhaps a good guess at his REAL intentions can be made if we bear in mind that he has a long history of pushing a far-right populist political agenda – VERY similar to the agenda being implemented by Trump and Musk.
It’s also worth remembering another aspect of history: that when Hitler and Goebbels lied to working-class voters that they would tackle the capitalist elites – whose greed had caused the unemployment and poverty of the Great Depression – they were not actually members of that capitalist elite. Although, of course, they were being bankrolled by those elites. However, Trump and Musk – and Farage – who are also ‘promising’ to help ordinary working people in a time of crisis, are MOST DEFINITELY part of the capitalist elite who are actually causing those economic and environmental crises.
However, to lighten the mood a bit, it’s also worth recalling that as well as having been described as a ‘Poundland Trump’, Farage was given a somewhat different (but VERY apt!) description in Elvis McGonagall’s poem, ‘The Immigration Alphabet’:
“F is for Farage – Fearmonger-in-chief. The floating jobbie in the toilet bowl of public life that may never be flushed away!”
For those still unconvinced about voting for Starmer’s ‘lesser evil’ in order to prevent far-right candidates winning in key marginal seats, maybe thinking of their vote as ‘pulling the toilet chain’ on Farage would help!
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