Fascism

By- Hijam Irabot
Before this big war there was a big war from 1914-1918. The war was basically between Britain and France that had colonies and Germany that had no colony. Presuming the victory of Britain and France, Russia and Italy joined them and Turkey stood on the side of Germany. Towards the end of the war America also stood on the side of Britain and France. Germany lost the war. The colonies of Germany were distributed among Britain and France. Italy did not get much. In Russia people revolted and the workers destroyed the capitalist superstructure. Ipso facto Italy and Germany existed as countries without colony.
After the war there was crisis all over the capitalist countries. They began to decline after the war. Thousands and thousands of workers were jobless. Despite decline countries with colonies tried to recover from the situation. However countries without colonies reached the climax of the crisis. In Italy infuriated workers revolted and they took over the factories by driving out the owners. The capitalists were puzzled with the workers’ strike. They tried repression on the workers in order to protect their properties. For this work they discovered a suitable man whose name was Mussolini. Mussolini was at first a leader of the workers. When the war began he took side with the capitalists and insisted the workers to join the war. For that reason he was
expelled from the workers’ party. After his return from the war he was thinking about what to do. At that point of time the responsibility of defending the capitalists from the workers’ movement was entrusted to him. To suppress the workers he formed a party called ‘fascist.’ The rich people of the country helped the party. As a result in few days time the fascist party became very strong. The workers, however, could not come up with an appropriate plan to subvert the activities of the fascist party. The leaders did not constitute an anti-fascist front of the workers to keep their leaders intact. Their strength was weakened due to several small factions. Therefore the fascist defeated the workers. Workers were expelled from factories, workers organisations were disbanded, their trade unions were destroyed, the leaders were killed, some were jailed and some were forced exiled. The rich were happy as the workers’ movement was brutally suppressed, and the rich entrusted the government in their hands to defend their properties. Mussolini along with fascist leaders constituted a council known as “Fascist Grand Council” and became the absolute ruler to govern the country.
To ensure that the workers’ movement does not rise and also not to hurt peasants the factory owners and landlords jointly formed a party rechristened as “Corporation”. By forming the Corporation” planning was done to handle any popular assertion against the government. The preparation to subdue workers’ assertion is the first and foremost task of fascism. The second task of the fascism in the countries without colony is to create colony. It has been discussed that capitalism cannot survive without colony. Commercial activities become difficult if colonies are not available; hundreds and thousands of workers could not find job and workers’ movement become stronger. At last workers could become infuriated and may take control of the
government and manufacturing machines. Therefore if there is no colony capitalism cannot last long. Even if fascists had suppressed workers’ movement the root cause of agitation had not been rooted out. The root cause was capitalism. And the purpose of forming fascist groups was to defend capitalism from the workers.
Capitalism could not root out the decline of business due to the impoverishment of the workers and peasants and joblessness of hundreds and thousands of workers. In those situations capitalists looked out for colony. It has been discussed above that if there were colonies there could be temporary solutions. However, are colonies be easily available on the earth? Since countries suitable to be converted into colony were already occupied by Britain and France, there was no other option than waging war. Therefore ‘prepare for war’ was the slogan of the fascists. Heading the country towards war was their second task. With this objective war propaganda began. In fact after the 1914-1918 war many were antipathetic to war. Fascists reconcile with it and spread message to condemn those who do not support war. They began to teach even small children in the schools with such propaganda, ‘war makes people civilised; peace make man inhuman’, ‘there is nothing prestigious than dying in the war for colony’, etc. In all places youths were taught to fight war. In the factories bullets and medicines, and other war materials were excessively manufactured.
In the manner fascism was formed in Italy in Germany too fascism was formed. The only slight difference being that it was not called fascism but called Nazism. However, there was no substantial difference between fascism and Nazism. Nazism was somewhat more hardliner and merciless than fascism. After the 1918 war the German workers could not bear war burden and they rose up. However, power did not come in the hands of the workers. Instead power had remained with the capitalists as some leaders of the workers secretly took side with the capitalists and there was heavy repression by the capitalists. Since the capitalists retained the power there was an increase in impoverishment of the general mass, business slump, gluts of unsold goods piling up in shops, growth of jobless, etc. In addition to it the economic burden was increased due to extraction of annual war compensation by Britain and France. The crisis could not be resolved even to a little extent since Germany did not have colony. Suffering of the people kept on increasing. Rubbing salt to the wound the burden on Germany was increased due to economic slump in 1931. Workers demanded an end to capitalism in order to recover from the distress; and the capitalist demanded expansion of colony and suppression of workers’ movement. The conflict between the workers and the rich got heightened.
Hitler who was defeated in the war formed a party known as ‘Nazi’ and ‘National Socialist.’ Until 1931 there was no trace of his name in Germany. However, by 1931 capitalists had realised that the workers were uniting and that unless the movement was suppressed there was no hope of their survival. Thereafter they began to help Hitler’s party. There was information about British and French capitalists taking money to Hitler and helped him in order to ensure that workers did not take control of power. With all these support Hitler’s Nazi party became stronger. Workers could not foresee the emerging threat. At that point of time the Germany workers had two parties; one was ‘Social Democratic’ party and the other was ‘Communist’ party. The Social Democratic party
did not want to completely destroy capitalism at one go, but had wanted to work within it and to establish workers’ power steps by steps. But the Communist party had wanted to destroy capitalism completely and build workers’ rule. For these reasons the two parties were in conflict. The worst result was that the workers were kept divided. On the other hand the capitalists were merging with the Nazi party. Even when thousands were united how big could the capitalists be? They are few. Therefore unless they form alliance with others and unless they
play divisive role among the workers they were bound to doom. Therefore, in order to win support Hitler inserted in his party programme certain demands of all the sections. For an example, to please the peasants some demands of the peasants were inserted, to please the workers it inserted that capitalism must be destroyed, etc.
In addition, every Germans were humiliated with the Treaty of Versailles (being defeated in the previous war of 1914-1918 the treaty was signed with Britain and France) Hitler began to launch anti Treaty of Versailles agitation. And since the ancient Europeans had treated the Jews indifferently he incorporated that sentiment into his programme. He came to the conclusion that sufferings and economic distress of the country was due to the Treaty of Versailles, the Jews and the communists. In all the federal elections of Germany after 1919 Hitler’s Nazi party and the communists were gaining numbers whereas other parties were declining. In this context the conflict between the rich and workers was increasing and the every Germans was affiliated to either of the rich or the workers. When the division among people was heightened the Germany capitalists entrusted the responsibility of ruling the country in the hands of Hitler.
The moment power came in his hands the first task of Hitler was suppression of workers’ movement. Worker leaders were arrested and sent to a peculiar jail called ‘concentration camp’ without trial.
Many were killed secretly. Not only the workers’ leaders were arrested anyone who expressed slight indifference to Nazi were not spared. Nazi goons ransacked other parties and entered into the families and carried out indiscriminate tortures. Such torture was highest among the Jews. The famous Jew scientist Albert Einstein escaped secretly and was saved from the Nazi. Those who escaped in this way were saved but those who did not were arrested, tortured and killed. In this manner of torture Hitler destroyed all the parties that were against him and expanded the Nazi party and his rule. The first task of fascism to defend uncontested rule of capitalism by suppressing workers’ movement was carried out in such merciless manner.
After accomplishing the first task the Nazis made preparation for the second task of scrambling for colony. To scramble for colony war must be waged. Therefore extensive war preparation was taken up. On the other had there had began manufacturing of war equipments, gun powder, bullets and on the other hand there instigations were underway to make the entire people infuriated. Like the fascists of Italy the Nazi was not only articulating war but also spreading misconceptions. Misconceptions were disseminated to all the Germans that, “the German nation was the biggest nation on earth. The German nation was created to rule over all other nations. Therefore everyone on whose veins the German blood flows must sacrifice life for the victory of the German nation.” In simple word, “sacrifice life in waging war and expand colonies for the German capitalists” was the spiritual thrust of the Nazi education. In this manner the entire Germany was prepared for war; the unseen and sensitised nationalism were the features of their spiritual satisfaction. The middle class youth rose up for territorial expansionism by this blind nationalism and became the toy of the rich. What they had failed to notice was that the meaning of nationalism was not colonisation by suppressing the nationalism of others. True nationalists cannot be the toy of the imperialists. True nationalism is sovereignty; the sovereignty of a nation cannot be destruction of the sovereignty of another nation. The one who expand the territory of his country by
forced reducing the territorial limit of others, destroying the sovereignty of other nation and unnecessarily oppressing the people of different nation hardly respect sovereignty. It also meant that the sovereignty of his country was merely a rhetoric but practically impossible. However, the German youth had never critically analysed all these. Stimulated by the misconceptions of the unseen nationalism they jumped into the war. As a result they could not achieve sovereignty. The zeal for sovereignty was strangulated to utter destruction. The hypocrisy of imperialism was miscalled sovereignty, and by deceiving in the name of nation all the youths were sacrificed.
In Japan too fascism was formed. The three countries that did not have colonies were closely allied. They agreed to help one another in colonial expansion. After preparations they began war. The recent war began in the same way.
So far we have seen that fascism was formed simultaneously for similar goal in Italy, Germany and Japan. Depending on specific conditions there were some modifications but they were one. When the contradiction between the rich and the poor was heightened the rich openly took the form of fascists and tried to suppress workers’ movement. If the workers were divided the capitalists could easily suppress them and continue with their rule. Therefore there were two factors of fascism. Firstly there was increasing tendency of sectarianism among the workers. Secondly there was lack of unity among the workers’ parties. The objectives of fascism are two. The first is suppression of workers’ movement to defend the capitalists from popular unrest.
The second is to create colony by waging war. Therefore, it will be difficult to consider fascism as different from capitalism. Capitalism merely incarnates in a new look by taking the form of fascism. Fascism is not anticapitalism but it is formed to defend capitalism. We can conclude that when capitalism had to take a new form, to suppress worker’s movement when workers became certain to revolt and in order to create colonies, it can be called as fascism.
What is the fallout of fascism? If one understands in detail the origin of fascism then the answer will not be difficult. When the capitalist could not make successful planning to overcome the crisis they have created (constraints of business, job cut, etc) they began to adopt fascism. Can fascism completely overcome the crisis? No. Since they could not completely overcome the crisis they began to look for colony. They presumed that everything could be resolved once colonies have been created. In the attempt there were threats from all directions. Firstly, when defeated in war they could not resolve the crisis. On the contrary there was near rooting out of fascism when the workers revolted. War had increased the burden on people beyond limit. As long as the
war was continued the people had borne the burden of war on the presumption that it was “for the country and everything will be resolved by creating colony.” Once defeated in war it seemed that all presumptions were proven irrational. Those who perceived colonial expansionism as the highest patriotism were falling-off. When the dream was crumbled they could not think to bear with the existing burdens. Taking advantage of the situation the worker parties revolted to take control of the government. Secondly, if in case the fascists win war they could not establish smooth rule for long time and did not had the time to subjugate and exploit the colonies.
On the one hand the liberation movement by the peoples in colonies became stronger, and on the other hand in colonial markets the goods of fascist country were piling up. The crisis of capitalist system such as business slump and inability to provide jobs to all began to set in. Since the crisis could not be resolved there began unrest both in the colonies and the fascist countries. Such unrests rendered the survival of fascist rule into difficulties. Therefore fascist rule cannot last long in the society. Although stimulated by its inherent poison it was active for a short period and raised some propaganda the same poison destroyed it very soon.