Last week I started what might end up being a long series of posts about what’s different about the prospect of fighting fascism in the 21st century as opposed to the 20th. THe differences are innumerable! But there are a few that are extremely important. For the next few posts, I’ll raise them as issues and discuss what, if anything, can be done about them.
One of the most obvious differences between the present-day rise of the extreme right-wing all over the world is that, unlike in the early 20th century, it is not accompanied by a similar rise of the left-wing.
In the early 20th century, millions of people in the developed world (as well as in major urban areas in countries that were still colonies, or in the global south) were part of large, organized leftist movements. They were in unions, they were in in socialist and communist parties. In a later post I’ll talk about these party formations as such, but for now I’ll focus on them as examples of the left’s power and influence.
In the 1910s and 20s, precisely when the early fascist movements were beginning and contesting state power, the major Marxian leftist parties and other groups had existed for more than fifty years. They’d contested election, and even occasionally won. Even in the US the Socialist Party held local office, and with Eugene Debs got as much as 6% of the vote in 1912. Many major unions were associated with a significantly more radical tradition than they are today, and were potentially committed to the transformation of capitalism.
Major socialist parties in the US, Latin America, and Europe were split over World War One and the question of reform vs revolution - but that’s precisely the point! They were split! There was a debate about what the party or movement’s posture toward capitalism should be, rather than an assumption that the status quo was the best, or possibly the only option.
In the early 20th century, the left offered a transformative vision for the future. Today, it barely exists.
I’ll cover the death of the labor movement in a later post. With respect to the partisan, political left, there is essentially no major left political party that earnestly supports ending capitalism. This is true not only in Europe and the US, but in Latin America as well, where even formerly radical revolutionary fighters became relatively tame moderates after the end of that region’s dictatorships. The only major country run by a a Communist Party, the People’s Republic of China, is itself one of the most powerful capitalist economies on the face of the Earth.
So: compared to the early 20th century, the left is dead, and has been for decades. What does that mean about the fight against fascism?
Two big points come to mind. First, the primary and immediate enemy fo the right has always been the left. This is true whether or not the left is powerful or weak, but the relative weakness of the left compared to the right-wing today means that it cannot meaningfully contest elections (except in a few countries and major metro areas). This has accelerated the right-wing’s timeline, allowing them to focus first on the other groups which they oppose (racial and ethnic minorities, women, queer people).
Second, the lack of an organized powerful left means that there is no political answer to the right-wing other than the center and the status-quo offered by most of the mainstream parties. As I established in part 1 of this series, the right-wing has a radical transformative vision for the future. Their vision is evil and cruel! But it is a vision. Without an alternative that could galvanize people, and especially young people, towards a more progressive idea for the future, the right will succeed in capturing the youth and guiding the course of politics.
We are now living through the failures of the late 20th century. Through the mid 21st, we will live through our failures today. Our best hope is to be able to see some of the fruits of our efforts by the end of this century.