The Fight Against Fascism in the USA

What is fascism? Must it look like it did in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and ’30s? Should it be of concern to political activists today? More importantly, how should incipient fascist groups be fought?
Washington’s campaign against countries and groups declared as enemies of the United States and the “free world” might suggest that fascism should not be a great concern to socialists and progressive-minded activists. Fighting imperialist wars and national oppression seem a much more urgent matter and they are.

Yet as this collection of articles and documents shows, fascism and fascist ideology is integrally linked to “democratic” capitalism and its policies against working people and the oppressed. Faced with a growing challenge to its rule at home, the capitalist class can readily turn towards fascism to combat the popular movement.

This volume is based on the experiences of the US Trotskyist movement over 50 years: in the antifascist struggles of the 1930s and ’40s and the fight against incipient fascist ideology and groups during the Cold War; it also touches on the 1960s and ’70s, in particular the question of how to pose the struggle against fascism in regard to the issue of free speech.

The episodes outlined here show that fascist groups and movements are by no means assured of success, that they can be defeated by a workers’ movement armed with a correct analysis of the problem and firm adherence to a strategy of mass countermobilisation. This collection is a primer on the issue for socialists everywere.