LITTLE LENIN LIBRARY
■ ■ ■
These little volumes contain Lenin's
shorter writings and have become
classics in the application of the
teachings of Marx to this period of
modern imperialism*
■ ■ ■
The Teachings of Karl Marx 15
The War and the Second Interna-
tional 20
Socialism and War 15
What Is to Be Done? 50
The Paris Commune 20
The Revolution of 1905 20
Religion 20
Letters From Afar 15
The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our
Revolution . , 15
The April Conference 20
The Threatening Catastrophe and
How to Fight It 20
Will the Bolsheviks Retain State
Power? 15
On the Eve of October #15
State and Revolution .30
■ ■ ■
Order froms
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS
P. O. Box 148, Sta. D (50 E. 13th St.) New York City
THE MEANING OF SOCIAL FASCISM
Its Historical and Theoretical Background
By EARL BROWDER
FOREWORD
This pamphlet is based on a lecture delivered by Comrade
Browder at the Workers School Forum, New York, in
December, 1932. This thoroughgoing analysis of the fas-
cist essence of present-day international social democracy
deserves to become accessible to the broadest number of
American workers. This is especially true now when the
complete betrayal of the German working class by the lead-
ership of the Socialist Party and the reformist trade unions
of Germany, and when the active collaboration of the Ameri-
can Socialist Party and A. F. of L. leaderships with the
union-breaking and strike-outlawing N.R.A. make the role
of social-fascism stand out in all its nakedness.
* * * *
L — THE RELATION OF SOCIAL FASCISM-TO FASCISM
"pASCiSM is a distinctive characteristic of the post-war period of
■*■ capitalism. That is, it is one of the expressions of the efforts
of the capitalist class to bolster up and defend its declining rule.
One specific feature of fascism is open abandonment of parlia-
mentary forms of government. This has been seized upon by
bourgeois ideologists as the characteristic feature of fascism. On
this basis, the attempt has been made to create the general opin-
ion among the masses that the issue of fascism is the issue be-
tween parliamentary democratic government and dictatorial gov-
ernment. Especially is this formula made use of by the parties
of the Second International, the Socialist Parties. Upon the basis
of this formula they lump together fascism and Communism as
two forms of dictatorship in opposition to democracy for which
they claim to stand. This formula serves the purpose of obscur-
ing the real issues before the working class and of diverting its
energies from the revolutionary struggle for the defense of its
immediate needs and for the destruction of the capitalist system.
It is itself the theoretical connecting link between fascism and
social fascism. But otherwise it is an empty, unscientific phrase
which ignores the real basis of different political forms*
"People always have been and they always will be the stupid
victims of deceit and self-deception in politics," Lenin wrote,
"until they learn behind every kind of moral, religious, political,
social phrase, declaration and promise to seek out the interests
of this or that class or classes."
Fascism is merely one of the forms of the dictatorship of the
capitalist class. The dictatorship of the capitalist class exists and
has existed in many forms. The historical form of capitalist dic-
tatorship is the bourgeois republic based upon the general fran-
chise; but in very few instances does this develop in reality in a
pure form. However, it is an axiom of Marxism that whatever
the particular form of government — constitutional monarchy,
bourgeois republic with limited franchise, or bourgeois republic
with broad franchise — the class content of these forms of gov-
ernment has always remained the same. All of them are merely
forms of the dictatorship of the capitalist class. As Marx said
in 1850, "the bourgeoisie, when it rejects the general suffrage
with which it had hitherto draped itself and from which it had
sucked its omnipotence, admits candidly: 'Our dictatorship has
hitherto existed through the will of the people; it must now be
consolidated against the will of the people.' "
Since the World War, which hastened the decline of the
capitalist system, various new props have had to be brought to
bolster up the rule of the capitalist class. The capitalist class has
no longer been able to rely upon the simple operation of the
machinery of bourgeois democracy and has had to bring to its
aid various new instruments. During the war and since the war
I
the capitalist class has placed its main reliance for holding the
masses in support of its class dictatorship upon the parties of the
Second International, the social democracy, the social fascists of
the various countries. Today the social fascists are the main
prop of capitalism among the working class masses. But wherever
the declining capitalist class sensed the approach of a revolution-
ary crisis it developed another weapon in the form of fascism.
If social fascism is the use of the various Socialist Parties to
mobilize the toiling masses in support of declining capitalism,
fascism is the mobilization, under various demagogic slogans,
primarily of the declassed and petty bourgeois elements and polit-
ically backward and impoverished peasant masses under the
direct control and supervision of finance capital. These fascist
forces are mobilized first of all for the physical destruction of
the organizations of the working class and the toiling peasantry,
supporting the capitalist dictatorship by open violence in defiance
of the forms of democracy.
When the capitalist class, therefore, passes from one form of
government to another, it is not changing the class meaning and
the class content of the government. It is merely changing the
form of its capitalist dictatorship to meet the requirements of
the particular moment and the particular place. Likewise within
these various forms of government the capitalist class does not
hesitate to use different parties for the exercise of this dictator-
ship. At one moment it leans most heavily upon the social democ-
racy and secures the execution of its policies through the Socialist
Parties which bring to it the necessary support among the masses.
At another time, when this open use of the social democracy as
an instrument of capitalist government threatens to destroy or
undermine seriously the mass base of this party, and the masses
following the Socialist Party begin to turn to the Communist
Party, then the bourgeoisie brings forward its fascist organiza-
tions. And for the time being it allows the Socialist Party to
recoup its mass strength by passing over to the role of "loyal
opposition", ready to come again to the foreground when called
to take up the task of ruling for capitalism.
First, it must be understood that fascism grows naturally out
of bourgeois democracy under the conditions of capitalist decline.
It is only another form of the same class rule, the dictatorship of
finance capital. Only in this sense can one say that Roosevelt
is the same as Hitler, in that both are executives of finance capi*
taL The same thing, however, could he said of every other exec-
utive of every other capitalist state. To label everything capi-
talist as fascism results in destroying all distinction between the
various forms of capitalist rule. If we should raise these dis-
tinctions to a level of difference in principle, between fascism
on the one side and bourgeois democracy on the other, this would
be following in the line of reformism, of social fascism. But on
the other hand to ignore entirely these distinctions would be
tactical stupidity, would be an example of "left" doctrinairism.
Second: the growth of fascist tendencies is a sign of the weak-
ening of the rule of finance capital. It is a sign of the deepen-
ing of the crisis, a sign that finance capital can no longer rule
in the old forms. It must turn to the more open and brutal and
terroristic methods, not as the exception but as the rule, for the
oppression of the population at home and preparation for war
abroad. It is preventive counter-revolution, an attempt to head
off the rise of the revolutionary upsurge of the masses.
Third: fascism is not a special economic system. Its economic
measures go no further in the modification of the capitalist eco-
nomic forms than all capitalist classes have always gone under
the exceptional stresses of war and preparation for war. The
reason for the existence of fascism is to protect the economic sys-
tem of capitalism, private property in the means of production,
the basis of the rule of finance capital.
Fourth: fascism comes to maturity with the direct help of the
Socialist Parties, the parties of the Second International, who are
»se elements within the working class we describe as social-
fascists because of the historic role which they play. Under the
mask of opposition to fascism, they in reality pave the way for
fascism to come to power. They disarm the workers by the the-
ory of the lesser evil; they tell the workers they will be unable
to seize and hold power; they create distrust in the revolutionary
road by means of slanders against the Soviet Union; they throw
illusions of democracy around the rising forces of fascism; they
break up the international solidarity of the workers. They carry
this out under the mask of "Socialism" and "Marxism". In
America this role is played by the S. P., "left" reformists and the
A. F. of L. bureaucracy.
II — SOCIAL FASCISM IN ENGLAND AND GERMANY
Let us concretize this general formula: We have excellent
illustrations especially in the history of Germany and England.
In England the Labor Party, the second largest party of the
Second International, has twice been used by the British bour-
geoisie as its government party. The British ruling class was
threatened by serious uprisings in its colonial empire and by seri-
ous mass discontent at home that endangered the structure of the
entire bourgeois state. And in each case it overcame these crises
by calling into office the Labor Party and creating the illusions
among the masses that some concessions were being made to
them through the instrumentality of the "labor" government.
And in each case the class policy of the government remained
unchanged.
The first MacDonald government was called into office pre-
cisely at the moment when British imperialism felt it necessary
to suppress violently colonial uprisings in Incjia and in the Near
East; and the government headed by Ramsay MacDonald and the
labor cabinet carried through this violen^ suppression with even
more ferocity than any Tory government had found necessary
in the last couple of generations. The MacDonald government,
the so-called Socialist government, introduced the policy of sup-
pressing the colonial uprisings by means of the air force, carry-
ing out reprisals against the revolting colonial peoples not by
direct struggle against the armed forces of the colonial peoples,
but by bombing and destroying whole towns and villages, in-
cluding men, women and children, in air attacks. This practice
was first introduced by the Ramsay MacDonald labor govern-
ment.
The first MacDonald government was called into office at a
time when the laboring masses of England were stirring in wide^
spread revolt over domestic issues. The British workers were suf-
fering in the first years of the permanent unemployment affecting
millions. Wages were being deflated, as they called it, and large
mass struggles had taken place. Under pressure of these mass
struggles, the trade unions in England had begun to move toward
the establishment of broad fighting alliances in resistance to the
wage cuts and for the struggle against unemployment. By call-
ing the labor government into office, the British bourgeoisie se-
cured the dispersal of this rising mass movement of the workers
at home. It disorganized and disintegrated the organizations of
struggle among the workers, and created the illusion among them
that they were about to achieve their objectives through the
peaceful democratic process of electing the Labor Party leaders
into government and into office.
In office the Labor government proceeded to carry through the
same capitalist policy at home that had been carried through by
the Tories and by the liberals. And when this realization
threatened to arouse rebellion against the Labor Party, then the
Labor Party was dismissed from office, going into opposition and
recuperating its mass strength until a few years later it could
again be used as the government party for the bourgeoisie.
The second time it came into office, it had to go even further
than the first time. Where before, to suppress the colonial up-
risings, the labor government had carried through mass arrests
and bombings of villages in India, the second labor government
has the distinction of being the government that put 50,000
people in jail in India in the hopes of stopping the independence
movement. It has the distinction of slaughtering many more
thousands of rebels in the colonies and at home. It has the dis-
tinction of having itself formulated and inaugurated the policy
for the second great post-war offensive of the capitalist class
against the entire working class, the second great general reduc-
tion of wages for all workers in England, and the general reduc-
tion of unemployment benefits. This policy was formulated and
inaugurated by the Labor Party. And only when it was apparent
Chat this policy was going to destroy the Labor Party among the
Lsses, there came recently the sudden so-called split of the La-
bor Party and the emergence of a government of national con-
nrration, headed by Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden
of the Labor Party, Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party,
and a few scattered liberals. The world was treated to the
ectacle of a Tory government with a Labor premier, the chief
leader of the Labor Party during the past twelve years. And the
I ibor Party itself went into opposition again to try once more to
uperate its strength among the masses while the policy which
it formulated and inaugurated is carried through by the Tory
government with a Labor man at its head!
Let us take Germany. In Germany, the social democracy has
at performing the same role. We cannot here go into details
of the role of the social democracy during the war. All of us
know the fact that the Socialist Party became a pro-war and gov-
ernment party during the war, establishing the basis of its class
collaboration at that time. After the war, the social democracy
became the main instrument in Germany, first for the preserva-
u of the capitalist system against revolution and for the sup-
ssion of the German revolution, and, later, to prevent the
development of working class struggle and step by step to hand
le to the German capitalists all the gains that were made by
German working class immediately after the wan
The foundation of the German repubfic took place at a time
.ureat revolutionary upsurge. The workers were in power in
< iermany. The forces of the capitalist class were shattered. The
ilnlity existed for the immediate transformation of Germany
into a workers' republic, and to begin the reorganization of
many on a socialist basis. This was prevented by the con-
policy of the German social democracy.
Let us listen to a few quotations from a bourgeois academic
writer. In his study on The General Strike, published by the
University of North Carolina, Wilfred Harris Crook describes
events of those days:
7
"The extremists . . . n , he says on page 502, "desired to
see a combination of a proletarian militia and the 'People's
Marine Division* (itself a mixed band of sailors on leave, of
deserters and of unemployed) with control in the hands of the
Berlin Workmen's Council. The majority social-democrats,
disturbed by the presence of such organizations, saw the need
for sonic armed force that would be responsible to the govern-
ment and not to the radical Workers' Council of Berlin. Hence
a 'Republican Soldiers* Corps' was organized by Commandant
Wels from among the demoralized soldiers, with funds from
foreign and 'bourgeois' sources. ...
"The actual revolutionary outbreak did not occur until
January 5 and 6, 1919, but the events of the Christmas Eve
debacle were its immediate cause. The more basic reasons for
armed hostility between the two camps lay in the belief of the
Spaitatists and the ranks of the independents that the revolu-
tion was not really complete until the proletariat was in coin-
ipand, as in Russia. The Ebert Government and the majority
Social-Democrats in general held that the revolution had ended
when they came to power. The government had felt that the
majority of the German nation were behind them in opposing
any proletarian dictatorship— and such proved to be the case
when the constituent assembly was elected later, in January.
At the moment, however, the forces behind the extremists were
greater than even the Spartacist leaders were themselves aware.
In the great street demonstration on Sunday, January 5, the
Spartacist leaders themselves were surprised by the powerful
response which their call to protest had elicited." (p. 50 3)
As the Manchester Gudrdian reported on January 10, 1919:
"Both the revolutionaries and the government proclaimed a
general strike and called upon their followers to display their
forces in the streets."
And Crook (pp. 503-504) continues:
"The government (headed by the majority Social Democrats)
had presumably called for a general strike in the hope il
the masses of their supporters in the streets would overawe
the extremists. As it was, Monday morning January 6 (1919),
saw the shops all closed and all work at a standstill. The
vast crowds increased hourly } armed and unarmed soldiers
and sailors, professional men, women and children thronged
the streets carrying placards declaring their stand, measuring
the strength of their opponents, and massing before their
respective headquarters. Noske, who had just returned from
Kiel, describes how the government's supporters clamored
from the Wiihelmstrasse for arms to fight the extremists, while
the People's Commissaries themselves stood undecided in Ebcrt's
room in the Chancellor's Palace. Noske demanded a decision as
to the use of armed force. Someone replied: 'Then do the job
yourself.' Noske agreed, saying: 'Very well, if you like. One
of us must be the bloodhound. I shall not shirk the respons-
ibility.' He was promptly created Commander-in-Chief by
Colonel Reinhardt, Prussian Minister of War, withdrew with
General Maercker and other officers to a suburb of Berlin,
and there organized six corps of volunteer rifles, foot and
horse, under the command of General von Luttwitz, a Prus-
sian of the old school."
The revolution was crushed in cold blood. Crook adds:
"That the Volunteer Rifle Corps raised by General Maercker
and Gustav Noske gravely misused their power is evident from
the report of General Maercker himself, written on January
25 and published in his book, Von Kaiser hccr^%ur Rekkswefir.
Machine gun fire went on, he reported, from the roofs of the
houses in many of the main thoroughfare^ in his opinion, not
From (he Spartacists but from the rank and file of his own
corps! 'In actual fact the population of Berlin was kept for
ten days in terror of their lives by irresponsible elements of
(lie Volunteers.' "
The workers responded to the Noske butchery with strikes.
Noske took up his job as bloodhound again. Crook writes
(pp. 506-507):
"Meanwhile the government troops were reinforced and for
the first time every weapon of modern warfare was used from
artillery to aeroplane bombs. By Saturday, March 8 (1919),
9
the defeat both of the general strike and the revolution was
complete, and the reprisals began in good earnest. E
worker's house was searched for weapons and without even
the summary method of the court martial fifteen hundred men,
women and boys were :d In a single week in Berlin,
the majority by machine gun fire against handcuffed, massed
prisoners."
The massacre of the heroic Communards of Paris was re-
peated nearly 50 years later — only this time under the direct
orders and supervision of the social-democratic butchers!
"In two short months after the revolution had 'succeeded',
the old militaristic army officers were in control, put there
by the actions of Noske and his Majority Social-Democratic
Government."
Together with the capitalist class, the German. Socialist Parcy
worked out a system of some immediate concessions to the work-
ers on the basis of which the workers could be brought to submit
themselves to a bourgeois republic, under cover of which the
capitalist class could re-establish itself. The concessions that were
given to the workers were the eight-hour day, universal recogni-
tion of the unions, collective agreements and legal establishment
of shop committees. And with these concessions the social democ-
racy went into partnership with the capitalist class on the express
program of re-establishing capitalism.
In re-establishing capitalism with the aid of American loans,
the social democracy, step by step, handed back to the capitalist
class all of the economic concessions that had been made, and
all of the political power. The eight-hour day went by the board.
Even the recognition of the unions is maintained only as an in*
strument for the prevention of strikes and the union contracts
have no more validity in determining actual working conditions in
the factories. And even those small immediate concessions of
an economic nature that were given, were rapidly taken away
again so that today* the German working class has had its wages
* On the eve of Hitter's seizure of power.
10
reduced to 50 per cent, five million unemployed — perhaps it is
closer to six million now — have had their unemployment benefits
reduced below starvation level, taxes have been piled upon the
workers, taxes upon all articles of consumption, which took away
from them a large part of the small wages that are still left.
And step by step, the working class in Germany, under the mis-
leadership of the social democracy, has been reduced to an
appallingly low economic position.
The capitalist class is quite conscious in its use of the social
democracy and recently the National Association of German
Manufacturers has been seriously considering whether it was not
making a mistake in its too rapid development of fascism in
Germany, whether it could not longer try to use the social democ-
racy. It inaugurated a study of this question and about two
months ago sent out a special series of political letters to 100
selected German industrialists, giving the results of its study.
One of these communications fell into the hands of the Ger-
man Communist Party and has been published. The letter,
which was also reprinted in the New Republic of November 30,
1932, says:
"The rcconsolidation of the bourgeois regime in Germany
is the task of the moment, The present von Papcn gov-
ernment docs not as yet imply this rcconsolidation, although
such is the governments claim. Tactics alone were responsible
for this claim — it is a fiction necessary to the safeguarding of
the government's effective functioning.. . .
"The general character of the problem of reconsolidating
the bourgeois regime in post-war Germany lies in the fact
that the bourgeois leaders, the managers of the national re-
sources, have become too small a class to maintain their dom-
ting power without assistance. Unless they decide to trust
military lore,' as the mainstay of their regime — a most dan-
rouS procedure — they needs must ally themselves with classes
belonging to a different social level. These classes would serve
to give the indispensable democratic foundation to the gov-
erning faction, and would thus become the ultimate wieidcrs
11
of power. This marginal holder of bourgeois power was the
Social Democrats during - the first period of post-war recon-
solidation, . . Thanks to their social character as an original
workers' party, the Social Democrats brought to the political
constellation of that time not only their numerical political
power, but a much more important and lasting contribution j
they chained organized labor to the bourgeois state machinery
and by dong so paralyzed the revolutionary energy of their
rank and file. . . ."
This is a well-merited tribute and recognition given to Ger-
man social democracy by the National Association of German
Manufacturers.
One of the principal weapons of social democracy in carrying
through this policy and securing the acceptance of this policy on
the part of the workers has been the formula of the "lesser evil".
This formula works in somewhat the following manner: In a
trade dispute the employer comes forward with the demand for
a 20 per cent reduction of wages. The social democratic leaders
rush forward and say: we must organize and resist this 20 per cent
wage cut, but before we strike we must enter into negotiations.
They enter into negotiations and finally come to the conclusion
that instead of a 20 per cent cut, they will compromise on a 10
per cent cut. Then they go back to the workers and say: See*
we saved 10 per cent for you. All you have to do is accept a
10 per cent wage cut today. In the political field, the theory of
the lesser evil means the support of the "best" bourgeois politi-
cians and the "best" bourgeois parties as against the "worse"
bourgeois politicians and parties. Under this slogan the German
social democracy supported various governments of the bour-
geoisie when it could no longer itself carry the main responsibility
of government. Step by step it moved to a point where it sup-
ported the government of Bruening, who governed by presidential
emergency decree and carried through those policies which the
social democracy itself did not dare vote for in the Reichstag, and
which therefore could not be put to a vote because it was im-
possible to vote for these measures before the workers, without
12
i . -■, •.- ■ _ '■ : I
■■■<
/
being politically destroyed. But by voting to support the gov-
ernment which put these same policies into effect by presidential
decrees, the social democrats achieved the same object.
The slogan raised was: Bruening is the lesser evil, as compared
to Hitler. It is impossible for us to turn Bruening out, because
if we did, Hitler would come in and he would be worse. The
same theory was advanced in a peculiar form in connection with
the Japanese movement. In 1928, the Japanese government put '
into effect the so-called "law against dangerous thoughts". In
this law the Japanese government established the death penalty
for thinking dangerous thoughts, whereas previously in the old
law, the highest penalty for thinking dangerously was ten years
in prison. Against this new law giving the death penalty, the
social democrats came forward with the slogan, "Amend the
Dangerous Thoughts Law, Eliminating the Death Penalty and
Substituting Ten Years". Certain right wing elements even
among the Communists thought the death penalty was so bad
that it is better to fight for ten years in prison!
In Germany the social democracy brought forward the same
slogan, but instead of getting the death penalty changed to ten
years, they executed the death penalty against the Revolution.
The German social democracy cleared the path for the develop-
ment and rise of fascism in Germany. Under the slogan of the
lesser evil they used the political power of the organized work-
ers to bring into existence the government of fascism, first the
Bruening government, then the re-election of Hindenburg. It is
not so long that we can have forgotten that the German social
democracy elected Hindenburg.
Hindenburg became president seven years ago as the candi-
date of the extreme right of the German bourgeoisie. In the
presidential election of March 29, 1925, Hindenburg was the
worse evil, the lesser evil being the candidate of the "Progressive
Bloc" and the Catholic Center, Marx. When the next presi-
dential election came around on April 10, 1932, Hindenburg was
no longer the worse evil. When he was first elected, he had been
the worse, but now there was a still worse candidate, Hitler, so
13
that German social democracy faithfully rallied all of its sup-
porters behind Hindenburg and elected him president. A little
later than two months after Hindenburg had been re-elected by
the social democracy he dismissed even the Bruening government
as too mild, and established the von Papan-Schleicher govern-
ment, a government of a more open, pronounced fascist character.
The social democracy pretended to be in opposition to the von
Papen government. It was the votes of social democracy and the
policy of social democracy, however, that created the von Papen
government.*
When we speak of the Socialists as social fascists, we are not
merely abusing them, we are giving the scientific description, the
name of the political role which they are performing. That role
was to prepare the road for fascism, to prevent the struggle of
the masses against fascism, and to tolerate and support the estab-
lishment of the fascist governments. Socialists in words, fascists
* Since Hitler came to power the social-democratic leadership of Germany has
developed its policy of support of the German bourgeoisie to a new phase. Theirs
has been a continuous policy of aiding the advance of fascism by striving in
every way to disintegrate and disarm the working class in its fight against the
capitalist offensive. Instead of urging united action of the working class against
capitalism, the German social-democratic leaders united against the working class.
After Hitler came to power, the Communist proposals for unity of action against
the terror were spurned by the social-democratic Jeaders as thy crawled before
the Hitler regime. The leading social-democratic paper of Germany pledged its
support to fascism thus; "Hitler came to power legally, we must wait and see
what he will do. To ace now would be shooting in the air."
At the moment that piece of treachery was printed there were tens of thousands
of workers, including social-democratic workers, in the torture dungeons of fascist
Germany. Yet the leaders urged waiting to see what Hitter would do!
Leipart, social-democratic leader of the German trade unions, pledged that he
would cooperate fully with Hitler to "work out together the problems of work-
ing "conditions". Such cooperation was actually carried out in the wholesale turn-
ing over of the trade union apparatus under their control by the reformist officials
to the Nazi regime. m , ; . ,
Equally despicable was the spectacle of Wels 5 chairman of the German Social-
Democratic Party, who, to curry favor with Hitler, resigned from the Euro of the
Second International, in a typical social-fascist effort to stern the rising mass
fight against fascism by parliamentary and legalistic illusions. Wels and his asso-
ciates spoke of legalism and the democratic state machinery when all these forms
of capitalist democracy— the concealed dictatorship of the capitalist class — have
disappeared and in its place is the open, brutal dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
that is personified by the bloody regime of Hitler.
These recent evidences emphasize more than ever the correctness of the Com-
munist designation of the social democracy as social-fascist; the main social sup-
port of the bourgeoisie, not only before the advent of fascism, but its mam social
support in maintaining the monstrous role of fascism.
14
in deeds! That is what social fascism means. It is an accurate,
scientinc, descriptive term applied to the Socialist Party.
III. — AMERICAN SOCIALIST LEADERS JUSTIFY FASCISM
So far we have talked mainly about the Socialists in Europe.
This is not hecause the Socialists in America are any different,
but because in Europe they have gone through a higher develop"
ment and exhibit the logical conclusions of their policies in a
much more finished form. It is the next step, therefore, to estab-
lish the political identity between our American Socialists, the
German social democracy and the British Labor Party. They have
the same policy* They have the same formulas. They work in
the same way. They bring the same results.
The preparation of the way for fascism by the Socialists is
ally
3eing responsible ror fascist developments.
States, Norman T homas _charges that the development of fascism
in this country will be brought about by the Communist Party.
Writing in the summer, 1932, issue of the Socialist Quarterly,
he states:
"Communism, I am sure, whatever its intentions, is now
playing" into the hands of fascism by continually discrediting
democracy and by insisting on the inevitability of ruthless
dictatorship and of great violence. Nothing could be better
calculated to scare the timid into the arms of Fascist saviors
of 'order and security 1 ."
Let us see what is the political kernel of this charge! Re-
member, fascism is the instrument of the bourgeoisie for smashing
the revolutionary organizations of the working class. Therefore,
if there were no revolutionary organizations of the working
class, fascism would not arise. Therefore, the way to prevent the
rise of fascism is to prevent the revolutionary struggle of the
working class. This is the logic of the argument of social dem-
ocracy, of Norman Thomas, when he charges the Communist
Party with being responsible for the rise of fascism in the United
15
States. It is true that fascism arises as a counter weapon of the
bourgeoisie agabst the revolutionary upsurge of the workers.
If there is no revolutionary upsurge there will be no fascism.
And in this sense, the Communist Party is "responsible " for the
rise of fascism because only the Communist Party organizes and
leads the revolutionary upsurge of the working class.
Thus, according to Thomas, fascism is not the product of the
decline of capitalism and the attempt of the capitalists to main-
tain their rule at all costs, but it is produced by the Communist
Party because it discredits democracy and proclaims the necessity
of proletarian dictatorship. It is therefore not the capitalists who
are discarding democratic forms for fascist methods of maintain-
ing their dictatorship, but the Communist Party that is endanger-
ing democracy. Moreover, Thomas covers up the class character
of democracy by contrasting it with fascist dictatorship as if
capitalist rule were not the essence of both, This is the same
traitorous hypocrisy which the German Social Democracy prac-
ticed in its policy of the "lesser evil". We have seen what this
masking of the capitalist dictatorship under the guise of democ-
racy has led to in Germany. The struggle for the maintenance
of capitalism against the rising tide of revolution proceeds under
just this guise of a struggle for democracy.
In addition, Thomas absolves the capitalist class of its fascist
terror and makes it appear as a measure of self-defense against
Communist provocation. The poor capitalists are thus being in-
cited by the merciless Communists who have no regard for the
sincere efforts of the capitalists to carry on their robbery of the
working classes in a more democratic manner. Naturally, if the
Communists insist on frightening people by their talk of dicta-
torship, the capitalists can only respond by establishing their own
dictatorship. That is how history is made, according to the So-
cialist, Norman Thomas! And that is how the American So-
cialist Thomas helps the capitalists make history. Obviously,
such "arguments" are only a brazen apology for the offensive
launched against the workers' standards by the capitalist pirates
who dominate the life of the entire country.
16
The absurdity and hypocrisy of this logic are apparent when
we consider that neither the revolutionary movement nor fascism
would arise if there were no capitalist system. In a word, if
there were no exploitation and oppression, if there were no misery
and starvation, if there were no monopoly of the means and
conditions of life by a small class of capitalists— then there would
be no class struggle, no need on the one hand for the workers
to fight for the right to live, against poverty, unemployment and
war, and on the other hand for the capitalists to resort to every
form of violence and physical attacks against the workers and
their organizations in order to maintain the capitalist profit sys-
tem and their rule of exploitation and robbery.
The Socialist "argument" merely means that if the workers
starved quietly and did not resist the capitalist offensive of wage
curs, unemployment and terror, allowing the capitalists to get
out of the crisis at the expense of the workers, then the capital-
ists would not have recourse to open forms of oppression and
violence. Of course not! But it is evident that such advice is
the logic of the robber rather than of his victim. To blame the
Communists for the capitalist attack is as if the robber, holding
up a person, were to accuse his victim of interfering with the
robbery and forcing him to use his gun in order to carry out
his robbery! It might as well be said that the robbed person was
responsible for the robbery. On the basis of such "reasoning",
it might be said with equal force that the Communists are
also responsible for the exploitation and oppression of the masses
by the capitalist class!
This is the same logic, it has the same political meaning,
when Norman Thomas accuses the Communist Party of inciting
race riots, through bringing forward the slogan of self-determina-
tion of the Negroes in the Black Belt. What docs this mean?
If the slogan of self-determination for the Negroes is wrong,
because the white landlords in the South will resist it, then the
demand for any kind of equality for the Negroes is equally
wrong. It is the argument of a traitorous pacifism which is the
political content of social fascism. It is the argument for the
17
submission to the rule of the bourgeoisie; an argument to set as
our goal only those demands which we can gain by peaceful per-
suasion, by changing the hearts of the kindly capitalists and
landlords.
Norman Thomas has formulated the main political task of
the Socialist Party on many occasions, especially during the
course of the past election campaign. In a speech delivered dur-
ing the election campaign before the Commonwealth Club in
San Francisco, Thomas stated:
"If we are to keep class strife from becoming" literal class
war in a country of thirteen million unemployed. . .there is
no time to lose. It is as the one hope of orderly and peaceful
social change in America, that I have been so insistently push-
ing the Socialist prog-ram and the Socialist organization in
America."
The New York Times, June 13, 1932, reported about the nom-
ination of Thomas by the Milwaukee Convention of the Socialist
Party as its presidential candidate as follows:
"In accepting the nomination for the presidency on the So-
cialist Party ticket, Mr. Thomas declared that the big task
that the Socialists have before them was to give intelligent
and organized expression to the growing discontent in this
country in order that the revolution might be averted and dis-
content directed into constructive channels,"
The Spokane School Board ordered cancelled its permit for
use of the high school auditorium for a Thomas meeting. On
September 22, the Spokesman-Review published a leading editorial
calling on the School Board to reconsider its decision and allow
Thomas to speak. The School Board, the Spokesman-Review
argued, is laboring under a misconception when it states that
Thomas "teaches things that are opposite to the fundamentals
that we are attempting to instill in our boys and girls".
"Their (that is, Mr. Thomas' and die Socialist Party's) en-
tire program, it seems probable, could be adopted, if a majority
18
of the American people wanted it, without a single amend-
ment to ike Constitution of the United States. . . . That fro gram
differs tittle, if at all, from that of President Hoover, 'We are
not Communists preaching- a ruthless doctrine of "bloodshed
and dictatorship', said Mr. Thomas in his acceptance speech.
Earlier in the day, in opposing a proposal by a California
delegate that the Socialists declare for confiscation of property,
Mr. Thomas declared that if such a proposal were adopted by
the convention, he would refuse the nomination."
IV. — AMERICAN SOCIALIST LEADERS AND WAR
Let us examine the development of the American Socialist
Party and its leaders in the elaboration of policies corresponding
to those carried through by the Socialists in other lands.
First of all, we should point out that the American Socialist
Party, and particularly its main leaders, Norman Thomas and
Morris Hillquit, endorsed and supported openly every step in the
development of the German social democracy, including the
election of Hindenburg. They supported and endorsed every
step in the development of the MacDonald government. Or if
they made any little reservations, it was some kind of reserva-
tion that Socialists of one country always make about the So-
cialists of another. These reservations are the kind that are
required in order for one to adjust himself to the policy of one's
own bourgeoisie and when Socialist brothers of another country
are also supporting the rival bourgeoisie. Furthermore, when the
imperialist masters have quarrels, it is always reflected in the
quarrels among the Socialists also. The American Socialist
Party, for example, came out in the early part of the invasion of
Manchuria by Japan and gave one hundred per cent endorse-
ment to the Japanese Socialist Party which was supporting the
invasion of Manchuria. Later on, with the sharpening of the
relations between the United States and Japan, the Socialist
Party in the United States stopped talking about its support to
the Socialist Party of Japan. It is interesting to note that this
same Socialist Party of Japan even split in two, one section want-
ing to travel faster than the other, and coming out openly as
19
the fascist party. Half the Socialist Party of Japan, together
with its general secretary, is now openly the party of fascism.
It is necessary at this point to deal somewhat with the record
of the Socialist Party on the question of war. It is really illu-
minating to consider the Christian Socialists and their organ, The
World Tomorrow, which carried on an active campaign in sup-
port of Norman Thomas. It is the Christian wing of the Social-
ist Party. It prides itself on the ethical and religious grounds it
gives to Socialism and especially upon being very honest and very
fair. In the spirit of very Christian honesty and fairness, The
World Tomorrow was the first paper to come out in the election
campaign and declare it supported Norman Thomas as against
Foster on the grounds that Thomas and the Socialist Party had
a good record of fighting against war, whereas Foster had sup-
ported war and sold Liberty Bonds. If the gentlemen and ladies
of The World Tomorrow wished to know the facts they could
have known them. In fact, it is my opinion they knew them
when they wrote and they knew the Socialist Party had not
fought against war. They knew that it had supported war and
that Foster, in spite of his mistakes (which were concessions to
the influence of this same ideology that dominated the Socialist
Party) was one of the very few leaders among the working class
who developed the class struggle and class organizations of the
workers in the midst of war in this country.
But what was the Socialist Party doing? I will give you a
few quotations. .Morris Hillquit, on February 11, 1 9 17^ before
the United States entered the war, at a time when it was still
safe to appear to he against war, gave his pledge in advance to
the United States government. He wrote in a signed article in
the New York Times'.
"The Socialist attitude has always been this — to oppose war
regardless of the circumstances, and when war did come in such
countries as were actually invaded or in real danger of inva-
sion, to go to the defense of the country as has happened in
Belgium and France and Germany and Austria."
20
And then he said:
"Socialism in the United States will not handicap the United
States government by strikes. If the armies are raised by con-
scription, of course, we will have to serve as other citizens.
I do not believe that the Socialists will advocate any general
industrial strike to handicap the country in its war preparations,
and I do not believe there will be any such strike."
If this is not an open, direct pledge of support to the gov-
ernment and encouragement to the government of the United
States to enter into the war, with the pledge in advance of the
Socialist Party to support it, then I am afraid we will never be
able to find any examples of such open pledges anywhere in his-
tory. The Milwaukee Leader, at the time of the declaration of
war, wrote;
"When the conditions necessary to prosecute the war with
any success shall be established, we shall have established the
groundwork for better conditions in time of peace."
Further it says:
"There will be no return to the old order, once we shall
have started on the path of collective activities. ... A people
welded in the hot flics of the world's war to common purposes
will not willingly return to the individualism of 'Every one
for himself and the devil take the hindmost'."
The next day the Milwaukee Leader said:
"The Socialists are loyal today} loyal they have ever been,
and loyal they will remain,"
The Socialist representative in Congress, Meyer London,
stated on April 12, 1918:
"The government of the United States having called upon
the people for a loan> there would be no better way of help-
ing the enemy than to refuse that loan."
21
He was absolutely against helping the enemy and therefore
wrote signed articles in the New York Times calling upon the
workers to buy Liberty Bonds.
That Hillquit is not the sole Socialist Party leader who is
ready to support imperialist war is particularly evidenced by the
statement of that Prince of Peace , Norman T homas, as reported
in the War Policies Commission hearings held May, 1931 (Vol,
3, Page'722);
"Second, I do want to congratulate the commission and
the country upon the dawning-, if somewhat muddle-headed,
conviction that when it comes to a real emergency like war, the
ever-blessed profit system won*t work without an immense de-
gree of control. As a Socialist I rejoice in this, even as I
rejoice in the demonstration given by the late war that planned
production is absolutely essential.
"In other words, my interest in this hearing is solely in
making it apparent that a new world war will be not only so
deadly but so unprofitable that it would be harder to bring
it about.
"...If I understood my friend Mr. LaGuardia correctly,
he is for a constitutional amendment which would permit us
to take over everything we need for war. If we were on the
verge of war t I should frobably be for it y but I have no great
enthusiasm for it." (Emphasis mine — E. B.)
We should at this point blast the claim demagogically vaunted
by the Socialist Party leadership to a revolutionary record in the
World War through the adoption of the St. Louis Anti-War
Resolution in 1917. The adoption of that resolution was forced
by the pressure of the militant left wing in the Socialist Party,
The declarations for mass manifestations and struggle against wat
were never carried into life. In the administrative hands of
Hillquit the resolution remained a scrap of paper.
V. THE SOCIALIST PARTY'S ATTACKS AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION
A few concrete examples of the American Socialists with re-
gard to the Soviet Union. Here we come down to modern times.
22
The Jewish Daily Forward, on May 17, 1931, developed the
argument which is not peculiar to it. It is the argument of the
whole Second International, although Norman Thomas usually
covers it up with much more clever phrases. The Jewish Daily
Forward has this, feature: it says boldly and openly what Norman
Thomas hints, and they never have any serious controversies
between them. The Jewish Daily Forward develops the argu-
ment that those who support peace are the capitalists, and those
who have created the danger of the new world war are the Soviet
Union, Red Imperialism. The exact words are as follows:
"The overwhelming majority of the representatives of
merchant and finance capital in all countries are now opponents
of war and supporters of a policy of peace and disarmament.
In truth, however, the Soviet Government is the only govern-
ment which does not cease to inject itself into the internal
business of all countries and which lays all its hopes on a new
European war. The Bolshevist militarism really represents a
great danger for peace,"
It is evident that this is the same "argument'* applied to the
Soviet Union, that the Socialist Party advances when it accuses
the Communist Party of bringing on fascism. It was therefore
quite consistent when the New Leader wrote on May 14, 1932:
"Those in a position to study Russian facts at close range
without being afraid to speak their minds, are convinced that
the scheme is a most woeful mistake."
I was debating with one of the representatives of the Socialist
Party during the election campaign up at Cornell University and
I had a strange experience. I brought forward a few quotations
like these, and when the Socialist got up to speak, he said: "I
don't defend Hillquit. I have attacked Hillquit more than Mr.
Browder does." That was Paul Blanshard, who spoke on behalf
of the so-called militants, self-styled left wing of the Socialist
Party. I think it is necessary to pay our respects for just a min-
23
ute to this "left wing". The left wing in the Socialist Party has
the special function that whenever a group of workers following
the Socialist Party gets too much disgusted with the Hillquits
and the Thomases, they have the Blanshards to trot out and
tell them to stay in the party and they will change it. It is the
same way in which the progressives in the Republican Party
served to save doubtful districts for Hoover before the last land-
slide, especially out in the agrarian states,
Mr. Blanshard said in that debate: "Of course, Hillquit was
absolutely wrong and anti-working class and anti-socialist when
he acted as attorney for the ex-capitalists who tried to claim
Soviet oil". And when Hillquit signed the capitalist appeal to
the courts, declaring that the Soviet Government wrongfully and
illegally seized the oil fields which rightfully belonged to the
capitalists, Blanshard said he was not defending that, he was
against it, but he said the convention in Milwaukee changed the
policy of the Socialist Party in this respect and they adopted a
resolution in support of the Soviet Union. But none other than
the Jewish Daily Forward, which ought to know what it is talk-
ing about, gave the official lie to this. It gives the following
estimate of the resolution in the Socialist convention in Mil-
waukee:
"Whether an attempt is really made in Russia to build So-
cialism or whether the bankruptcy of the Russian 'experiment'
may have a good or bad influence on the Socialist movement
in other countries, there were divisions of opinion among the
delegates. But all agree that the present regime in Soviet
Russia is a regime of autocracy and terror, and the Convention
unanimously joined in the demand that the Soviet Government
free all political prisoners and return to the Russian people all
political and civic liberties, which means in other words, the
abolition of dictatorship and the introduction of democracy."
That is the resolution which Mr. Blanshard introduced in the
Milwaukee convention and which was unanimously adopted, call-
ing for the "support" of the Soviet Union in the form of a
24
demand for the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat!
And in the program of the American Socialist Quarterly, the
organ of these self-styled militants, it is therefore stated;
"That by democratic methods, and not by methods of cabal and
dictatorship will Socialism be attained" (January, 1932) .
Having its opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat
in common with the capitalist class, the Socialist Party also re-
peats the slanders of the capitalists against the Soviet Union.
It is only a logical step from the demand to abolish the prole-
tarian dictatorship, to the vicious, even though ignorant, charge
that the Soviet workers are not only being exploited but are
being exploited worse than in any capitalist country. There is
an inner connection between all these points. Indeed, the latter
"argument" serves as a fundamental justification of the demand
for the abolition of the proletarian dictatorsliip. If the Russian
workers are being exploited, it means that the system of exploita-
tion must be abolished together with their exploiters. As a matter
of fact, if the proletarian dictatorship exploits the Russian prole-
tariat even worse than the capitalists do their proletariat, than
the Socialist Party cannot be wrong in supporting their imperialist
masters in a holy war against the Soviet Union for democracy.
Thus with a show of economic "learning" which could not be
viler or more stupid, the American Socialist Quarterly (Summer,
1932, No. 3) replied to Foster's statement that there could be no
exploitation in the Soviet Union, by stating that: "Exploitation
consists in taking from the workers a substantial part of the
value of their product , , /' Therefore when we take the accu-
mulation of capital in the Soviet Union, "we have a rate of
exploitation of more than 141%. When we compare the total
wage fund for 1932 of 26,800,000,000 rubles with the estimated
total of 30 billion annual increase in capital, we have a rate of
exploitation of 112%. Either rate is worse than the worst that
the capitalist world can show."
Such "economic literacy" speaks for itself. Its entire wisdom
rests on the fact that there is accumulation both in a proletarian
state as well as in a capitalist state. But in typical social-fascist
25
manner, it "forgets" the "little" matter of what class accumulates
in each state* This is the same social-fascist logic that equates
the Italian fascist dictatorship with the proletarian dictatorship
in the Soviet Union, because they are both dictatorships. The
fact that the special content of the dictatorship is determined by
which class exercises the dictatorship, the working class or the
capitalist class, does not seem to trouble the social-fascist logic.
To them, it is apparently immaterial whether the capitalists ex-
ploit the workers or whether the workers "exploit" themselves!
Certainly "exploitation consists in taking from the workers a
substantial part of the value of their product". But this state-
ment implies and would be correct only if a class of capitalists,
owners of the means of production, appropriated this surplus by
virtue of this monopoly of the productive forces. According to
the social fascists, the Soviet workers do not own the means of
production, and the Soviet state is not their state! Who then
owns the industries and whose State is it? Apparently the Com-
munist Party — which is not composed of class-conscious workers,
which is not the party of the working class, but represents its
own interests, etc.! Such is the confusion and the slander that
social fascism comes to.
There can be exploitation only where the producers do not
own the means of production! The proletariat does not exploit
itself. Its greater accumulation rate, which the social fascist
describes as rate of exploitation, means that a greater social fund
is established, which does not go to capitalists, but to all of
society. Instead of lower standards, which should accompany
greater rate of exploitation, you have ever rising standards!
Expanded production under capitalism is interconnected
with the accumulation of capital. In order to build new shops
and mills, in order to expand production, capitalists must acquire
capital. As we already know, the acquisition of capital inevitably
leads to the sharpening of contradictions of the capitalist system.
At one pole we have the acquisition of wealth, at the other —
poverty. The acquisition of capital is the acquisition of surplus
value squeezed out of the workers. The accumulated surplus value
26
is used by the capitalists as a weapon with which to enslave the
workers. It serves the purpose of broadening the scope of ex-
ploitation of the workers by the capitalists. New factories are
built, further thousands of workers are drawn into exploitation,
new machines are introduced — the extent of exploitation of the
working class grows.
Under Soviet conditions the widening of reproduction follows
the path of socialist accumulation. In order to build new fac-
tories and shops, in order to supply agricultural economy with the
necessary machines, tractors and buildings, constantly increased
outlays are necessary. In capitalistic countries industry was de-
veloped to a large extent according to the capital flowing into
it from the outside.
In many countries, capitalists built their industry at the ex-
pense of colonial robbery. Other countries received large war
tributes from defeated enemies. Many nations that industrial-
ized late in the history of capitalism became so by securing funds
from the richer, earlier developed nations — nations that were look-
ing for new lands in which to invest their surplus capital. To
the Soviet Union all these paths are closed. The Soviet Union
does not rob colonies, it does not receive tribute from defeated
enemies, it does not enslave the Soviet lands to capitalist coun-
tris by means of concessions. The means necessary for construc-
tion of socialist industry and for the technical equipment of
agricultural economy must be gotten from within the Soviet
Union. The Soviet Union must accumulate a certain part of the
means that are produced by the toil of the workers and farmers.
These means are accumulated by the socialist sector of Soviet
economy and are the basis for still wider socialist accumulation.
The poor and middle peasant economies also set aside a per-
centage of the means of production, for the improvement of the
production level. However, under conditions of scattered small
manufacture, any sort of serious rise was impossible. Only after
the transition to tracks of collective economy, appear the neces-
sary conditions for a basic growth of production, for a rapid
growth of economy.
27
In the present state, when the Soviet Union entered the period
of socialism, the socialist sector began to play an absolute, pre-
dominant role. The kulaks are being liquidated as a class by
means of thorough collectivization. Naturally the overwhelming
mass of means accumulated in the Soviet Union goes through the
socialist sector — follows the path of socialist accumulation. There
takes place the construction of a tremendous number of under-
takings; included in that number are many gigantic mills reach-
ing dimensions heretofore unknown to both Western Europe or
the United States. Collective farms and State farms are laying
aside gigantic sums for the improvement of their economy. Many
large machine-tractor plants are being built. The system of trans-
portation is being reconstructed from the roots, new railroads
are being built, tens of thousands of railroad cars and locomo-
tives are being added to the existing rolling stock. The advan-
tages of socialist economy give the Soviet Union the possibility
of using large means for the growth of production, which under
capitalism are either vulture-like stolen by parasite-idlers or de-
stroyed uselessly in a beastly light of all against alt Quite a
significant part of the entire national income of the Soviet Union
is used for the need of socialist accumulation, which assures the
overcoming of the backwardness of the Soviet Union and the
construction of a socialist society.
The rapid increase of production signifies the growth of the
national income at a rate heretofore unknown to history. The
general volume of national income is growing. This general
growth of national income gives the Soviet Union the possibilities
of simultaneous growth both for that part which goes towards
satisfying the needs of the toilers and that part which goes to-
wards socialist accumulation. And in actuality, in the Soviet
Union, together with the growth of investments into national
economy, goes the uninterrupted betterment of material (living)
conditions of the working class and the entire proletarian mass.
This is one of the basic advantages of Soviet economy over
capitalism.
We already know that the rapid rate of industrialization of
28
the Soviet Union and the decisive mechanization of the agricul-
tural economy are dictated to the Soviet Union by the domestic
and foreign factors which are hostile to its development.
In order to get high rates of economic development certain
accumulation is necessary. Definite economy is necessary, a mer-
ciless struggle against all kinds of excesses and unproductive ex-
penses is necessary, a fight against losses of any kind. Every
penny, every ruble invested in the increase of socialist produc-
tion brings nearer that moment when the Soviet Union will reach
and pass the capitalist world and will set up Socialism.
In socialist accumulation, the working class as well as the
peasantry participate. Because after all the tasks of industrializa-
tion of the Soviet Union, the tasks of overcoming its centuries-
old backwardness are being carried out not only in the interests
of the working class, but also in the interests of the whole mass
of poor and middle class peasantry. As to the kulaks, a definite
part of their income which they had not gotten through toil is
being expropriated from them by way of government taxes, indi-
vidual taxation, etc. During the liquidation of the kulaks their
accumulated wealth — buildings, machines, animals, etc. — -is trans-
ferred into the collective farm and serves the purpose of
strengthening the collective economy. The masses of peasant col-
lectivists participate actively in the Socialist accumulation. A
definite part of the income of the collective farm is set aside to
improve its economy for buildings, machines, increase of stock,
etc. A part of the product produced in the collective farm goes
into the general government treasury for the needs of socialist
industry and transport, for the needs of agricultural economy
as a whole.
Tens of billions of rubles have already been invested in the
setting up and reconstruction of heavy industry, agricultural
economy and transport. These means were heretofore gotten
mainly from light industry and agricultural economy.
"The picture is entirely different today. If in the past there
were sufficient sources of accumulation for the reconstruction of
industry and transport, today these means are already insuffi-
29
cient. The task today is not to reconstruct old industry. The
task is to set up new technically armed industry in the Urals,
Siberia, Kazakstan. The task is to set up new large scale agri-
cultural-economy production in the grain, stock breeding and
raw product sections of the U. S. S. R. Clearly the old sources
of accumulation cannot fulfill the needs of such grand tasks."
(Stalin,)
New tasks> a new situation, and the new conditions demand
new sources of accumulation. It is impossible co go along with
the old paths of accumulation only. The old courses are clearly
not sufficient for the completion of the grand problems, which at
the present moment are on the order of the day.
"Light industry is the richest source of accumulation and it
has all the chances today to develop still further, but this
source is not without its limitations. Agricultural economy pre-
sents a source of accumulation no less rich, but that itself in
the period of its reconstruction is in need today of financial
help from the government. And as to budgetary accumulation*
those, you know yourselves, cannot be and must not be without
their limitations. What is left then? There is left heavy indus-
try. Therefore, it is necessary to aim so that heavy industry
and first of all the machine construction section also produce
accumulation. Therefore, strengthening* and spreading the old
sources of accumulation, it is necessary to aim at the point
where heavy industry, and first of all machine construction, also
produce its accumulation. 5 * (Stalin.')
From this it is clear what great importance in contemporary
conditions is attached to the decisive struggle for complete intro-
duction of economic accounting, for systematic lowering of cost
of production, for the growth of inner-industry accumulation in
all sections of production without exception- The growth of ac-
cumulation within the industry, that is the basic method of
socialist accumulation in the present period.
Vli WITH PRACTICE COMES THEORY
It is clear that on all issues in the United States, the Socialist
Party differs from the German social democracy, from the British
30
Labor Party, not one iota in principle, but only in detail, a
detail determined by the fact that it is serving a different set of
capitalist masters and by the fact that it is as yet young and
undeveloped in this country.
How clearly this is demonstrated in the role of the Socialist
Party leadership in relation to Roosevelt's "New Deal"!*
American social fascists actively take part in developing the
international theories of social fascism. These theories have as
their purpose to justify the practices of the Second International
and its sections, and to confuse the minds of the workers on the
issues of the class struggle. They range from open apologies
for capitalism through open revision of Marxism to "orthodox"
Marxism of the Kautskyist revisionist school* All these theories
are, first, anti-materialist in philosophy (partaking of philosophic
idealism, of the philosophy of bourgeois class society, of religious
illusions, etc.), and second, a rejection of the viewpoint of pro-
duction as the center of gravity in the laws of capitalist produc-
tion, which they replace with distribution as the prime point.
The theories of Marxism (Marxism-Leninism, in the period
of imperialism) furnish a contradiction to the class collaboration
practice of the Second International, participation in bourgeois
cabinets, coalition policies in general, support of Bruening, elec-
tion of Hindenburg.** An honest investigation of capitalist pro-
duction relations necessarily leads to the Marxian theory. It
discloses no class harmony. It leads towards the class struggle.
The social fascists are, therefore, debarred from any honest
examination which would wreck their class collaboration policy.
Marx showed that the class struggle is bound up with the pro-
duction relations existing between the proletariat and the capital-
ists. The social fascist theory, therefore, avoids the problems
of the production relations. Instead, they approach economics
from the point of view of circulation, of market relations, mak-
ing this the center of their investigation. As Kautsky states in
* See Appendix.
** And the ignominious succumbing to and open support of Hitler in power.
31
his preface to the People's Edition of Volume 2 of Marx'*
Capital, page 19:
"In the circulation process there appear phenomena which are
of the greatest significance to the welfare and ill of the work-
ers, and which do not lose importance because here, to an ex-
tent, workers and capitalists have the same interests,"
Norman Thomas makes his American contribution to this
theory in his book, America's Way Out, page 138, when he says:
"Neither is it altogether true that the employers and work-
ers have nothing in common, as the famous I.W..W. preamble
had it."
One of the younger theoreticians of German social fascism,
Braunthal, in a text book of contemporary economics, published
in 1930, admits that one can come to theories of organized capi-
tal and economic democracy only when one starts from the con-
cept of the sphere of distribution, i.e. f takes the continuous
permanent existence of capitalist relations for granted, and the
harmony of proletarian and capitalist interests. This corresponds
to and justifies the practice of the Socialist trade union bureau-
crats in preventing and suppressing strikes, in calling upon the
state to intercede and prevent the workers* struggles. This inter-
vention of the bourgeois state it puts forward as a step toward
socialism. Hilferding formulated this most clearly in his speech
at the Kiel Congress of the German social democracy in 1927,
He said:
"To consider factory and economic leadership as the affair
of society is precisely the socialist principle, and society has no
other organ through which it can consciously act than the
state,"
The economic crisis shattered the theory of organized capital-
ism. The social fascists are, therefore, reconstructing this theory,
the product of capitalist prosperity, in forms to lit the period of
capitalist crisis. The rise of giant monopolies, which for them was
the beginning of organized capitalism, is superseded by enormous
32
state subsidies to bankrupt monopolies and trusts which are hailed
as state capitalism, a step toward socialism. The Vienna Arbeiter
Zeitung, organ of Austrian social fascism, thus formulated this,
November 7, 1931:
"The era of finance capital is followed by the era of state
capitalism; the domination of the banks over industry is fol-
lowed by the domination of the state over the banks which
dominate industry. The world will come out of this crisis
different from what it went into it. State capitalism which
arises out of the collapse of finance capital is not yet socialism,
but when the state dominates the banks and through them in-
dustry, then state capitalism turns into socialism as soon as
the masses who work in the factories conquer state power
which dominates the factories,"
State capitalism is thus hailed as the transition to socialism.
The German social fascists use this to justify the Bruening de-
crees. Thus Braunthal says in reference to the situation created
by these decrees:
"Certainly, the logical conclusion of this situation would be
the going over to planned economy, *. e. f to socialism."
And he says that this situation is a "painful transition sit-
uation".
But long ago Engels exposed this hokum when he said;
"And the modern state again is only the organization that
bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external
condition of the capitalist mode of production against the en-
croachments, as well of the workers as of individual capitalists.
The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a
capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal person-
ification of the total national capitalism. The more it pro-
ceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does
it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens
does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers — pro-
letarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It
is rather brought to a head. But brought to a head, it top-
ples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not
33
_
the solution of die conflict, but concealed within it are the
technical conditions that form the elements of that solution."
{$Qcialism t Utopian and Scientific, 1892, pp. 71-72.)
From the social-fascist theory of the developing revolutionary
role of the bourgeois state there flows the conclusion that the
proletariat should support this intervention in economic life, and
hence its suppression of the workers* struggles. In social-fascist
economic theory, therefore, economic categories become political
categories. Economic law is replaced by political arbitrariness.
With Marx exchange categories are the expression of certain
production relations. To the social fascists, however, surplus
value arises in the circulation process, crises arise in circulation.
Norman Thomas, the leading exponent of social fascism in
America, consistently develops these theories. He says;
"The operation of our complex machinery for the common
good rather than for private profit throws into strong relief
the role of the consumer,. It is very significant, as the Webbs
brought out before the war, that almost all progress in sociali-
zation has actually been in the interest of consumers." (America's
Way Out, pp. 143- \ 44.)
This consumers' viewpoint includes all consumers and tran-
scends class relations growing out of production.
Such social-fascist apologetics have not the slightest relation
to scientific treatment of economic and social problems. They
deal entirely with surface phenomena and not with the real rela-
tionships of capitalist society. They make impossible a scientific
understanding of the laws of movement and development of
capitalist society. As Marx said, Capital, Volume 3:
"The first theoretical treatment of the modern mode of
production necessarily started from the superficial phenomenon
of the process of circulation. .The real science of modern
economics only begins when theoretical investigation passes
over from the process of circulation to the process of produc-
tion."
The placing of the sphere of circulation as the basis of their
34
economic theory is hut a piece with their general advocacy or
class harmony. The motive is revealed in the Kautskyian theory
that in the circulation process, "to an extent, workers and capi-
talists have the same interests". Once the center of attack is
shifted from the production point to the sphere of exchange, the
struggle ceases to be fundamentally a class war of the wage^
workers in resistance to the extraction of surplus value by the
exploiters, and becomes a question of merely regulating the ex-
change process by the state, i.e., of organizing capitalism. And
since, according to Kautsky, in the sphere of circulation "workers
and capitalists have the same interests" (even though to an ex-
tent), that regulation should, by dint of logic, be carried on
on the basis of the sameness of interests, Le., through class
harmony!
The social fascists must have a philosophy by which to steer
their course of fascization. Norman Thomas develops specific
American expressions of this philosophy. He says:
"Three things a socialism worth confidence must offer: a
philosophy, a program and an organization equal to the task
of winning plenty and peace and freedom, not indeed with-
out suffering or struggle, but without a suicidal and self-
defeating degree of violence. It is in • these directions that
socialist thought and effort must consciously turn."
What sort of philosophy does Thomas need? Obviously one
that will correspond to the nature and deeds of his practice. It
is quite consistent, therefore, when he rejects revolutionary Marx-
ism and accepts only certain of its features after having watered
them down and eliminated their revolutionary contents. Thomas
himself says:
"A social ideal, a great organizing loyalty, a social 'myth*
as French writers use the word; these are included in the term
philosophy, which must have emotional as well as intellectual
content and will escape — I hope — degeneration into doctrinaire
crecdalism." (p. 131.)
Thomas's philosophy, therefore, has nothing in common with
35
scientific truth. Such a philosophy would not correspc thi
nature of social fascism. His philosophy need not be tfl
"Workers and capitalists have interests in common." A n
philosophy, reflecting the real world, would show an in. in
cilable class struggle. But social fascism aims to prevent i In-
working class struggle from developing, especially into revolt!
tion. His philosophy, therefore, tells him that the class Btruggll
is a "myth". Says Thomas on page 138:
"Moreover, as socialism and still more communism li
proved, the idea of the class struggle is a very effective organ
izing- 'myth* to hold the workers together and to substitl!
the supremacy of that 'myth' of nationalism which has leu
economic justification."
Nevertheless, "the more men and women who tratucend I
narrow and immediate class or group interest for the takfl ol
ideal interests, the better for us all", (p. 150.)
And on page 137 Thomas states:
"Nevertheless, economic determinism (sic!) is enormOullj
useful as a positive guide to social thinking and social pro
so long as it is not carried over to the realm of metaphj
or of absolute scientific la<w."
Thomas asks:
"But what is this philosophy we need? Thousands, |
haps millions, of socialists with more or less confidence will still
proclaim that it is Marxism ... and that our search need
no further.
"Nevertheless these things (the experiences of the Soviol
Union, the crisis, etc.) do not prove that all this old world
needs is to accept Marxism with its materialist conception
history, class conflict and theory of value." (p. 13 3.)
The philosophy of social fascism is not materialism, li
idealism. It accepts the worst illusions of the capitalist world,
together with the capitalist system itself. The acceptance ol <
latter inevitably entails the acceptance of the former.
Thus Thomas rejects "economic determinism" when it claim.
36
the validity of scientific law — but especially because "the very
terms it employs: 'determinism,' 'materialistic,' etc., match the
physics and the biology of the nineteenth century but not of the
twentieth", (p. 137.)
Thomas here is not rejecting the mechanical materialism of
eighteenth century France and the vulgar German materialism
of Vogt and others for the modern, the dialectic materialism.
He first ignorantly and in the manner of the open bourgeois
"critics" of Marx, identifies Marxian materialism with the
mechanical materialism which Marx and Engels consistently
fought throughout their careers. But secondly, he accepts the
idealist illusions of the religious minded ^philosophizing" scien-
tists of today (Whitehead, Jeans, Millikan, etc.) who, confronted
with new knowledge about matter, that is, with the more evi-
dently dialectic character of matter (fixed forms, indivisible ele-
ments, etc., giving way to forms flowing into one another, in a
process manifesting itself in contradictory aspects) conclude that
matter has disappeared and that only mind or spirit is left. In
addition, aside from showing this complete ignorance of the
literature of dialectic materialism on these questions, he does not
even know the technical literature of present day natural science.
Thus Thomas writes, page 137:
"Our fathers knew what matter was. It was what com-
mon sense told them it was. We are trying to learn that it
is a form of energy or perhaps something which can be ex-
pressed only in a set of mathematical formulas. Our fathers
knew the clear certainties of Newton: cause and effect, action
and reaction. We are trying to understand Einstein's relativity
d what Heisenberg means when in explaining the quantum
theory he talks of the 'principle of certainty V J
Thomas is obviously phrase-mongering here, since Planck,
founder of the quantum theory of matter, asserts the primacy
of matter and is really a materialist; and secondly, Heisenberg's
!: has been seized upon by all the fideists, priests, etc., as
i lie proof" that we do not know whether there is any
37
matter left, that we must doubt the existence of universal causal-
ity. And this is what Thomas has in mind. But in reality,
Heisenberg's principle does not deal with the existence or non-
existence of universal causality or law, it actually starts with the
existence of matter; and merely formulates the inadequacy of
present day instruments of measurement to measure the move-
ment of particles of matter. The principle of indeterminacy states
that "a particle may have position or it may have velocity, but
it cannot in any exact sense have both". And Bertrand Russell,
in his Scientific Outlook, pp. 92-93, elucidates, "that is to say,
if you know where you are, you cannot tell how fast you are
moving, and if you know how fast you are moving, you cannot
tell where you are".
As J. E. Turner stated in Nature, Dec. 27, 1930:
"The use to which the principle of indeterminacy has been
put is largely due to an ambiguity in the word 'determined'."
And Russell adds:
"In one sense a quantity is determined when it is measured,
in the other sense an event is determined when it is caused.
The principle of indeterminacy has to do with measurement,
not with causation. The velocity and position of a particle
are declared by the principle to be undetermined in the sense
that they cannot be accurately measured. This is a physical
fact causally connected with the fact that the measuring is a
physical process which has a physical effect- upon what is
measured. There is nothing whatever in the principle of in-
determinacy to show any physical event is uncaused." (p. 105.)
But Thomas substitutes the word "uncertainty" for "inde-
terminacy" and follows the fideists who wish to cast doubt on
universal causation. Thomas continues:
"Our fathers accepted a doctrine of evolution which ex-
plained all things in terms of natural selection and survival of
the fittest. We wrestle with hints of biological 'sports' and
strange mutations.
"Under these circumstances just what do you mean by a
materialistic conception of history', or any absolute determin-
ism? Can a generation which has had to go far beyond New-
tonian physics or atomic chemistry or Darwinian biology be
expected to find Marx, who was also a child of his time,
infallible?"
Thus does Thomas, like his European brothers, cloak^hls
revision of Marx with empty chatter about "modern science to
hide the fact that he replaces Marx's militant materialism by
Kantian agnostic idealism.
V H t — WINNING THE WORKERS FROM SOCIAL FASCIST LEADERSHIP
The Socialist Party in this country is becoming a political
factor of first rate importance only in the last period of the de-
cline of capitalism. It is very much delayed in its appearance on
the political stage as a serious instrument and therefore it has
to go through the process of its development at a much faster
rate than the Socialist Parties in Europe. In Europe, the Social-
ist Parties developed over a long period and were, m the period
before the war, genuine workers' parties. Opportunism, reform-
ism and revisionism developed freely within them. But they were
organs of the gathering of the working class forces, the crystal-
lization of working class consciousness, the development of work-
ing class demands.
It was the war which brought to a climax the growing oppor-
tunism of the Socialist Parties of Europe, Through their
participation in the war and the post-war revolutionary crises
followed by the re-establishment of capitalism, the Socialist Par-
ties were transformed into open and recognized functioning
agents of capitalist government. And these Socialist Parties in
Europe carried over into this new period the tremendous organi-
zational strength and political influence they had gathered in the
long years of normal, natural development and growth as the
parties of class struggle.
39
The Socialist Party in the United States has not this back-
ground. It had not become a mass party. When the war came,
and brought all of these issues to a sharp crisis, the Socialist Party
divided and the working class base, the revolutionary elements
of the Socialist Party, went into the foundation of the Com-
munist Party in the United States. Since that time the Social-
ist Party has languished in this country until in these last years,
with the development of the crisis, the bourgeoisie learned the
lessons of its brothers in Europe, and began to see that it really
had some use for the Socialist Party after all.
Under the influence of the more intelligent and active ele-
ments in the capitalist class, the Socialist Party was rejuvenated
and brought to the front in the last election campaign. We can-
not fail to see that to the extent that the Socialist Party came
into this last election campaign and increased its vote to about
two and a half times over that of 1928, that this was in the main
the fruits of the conscious, open support of the capitalist press,
given to the Socialist Party. The bourgeoisie is definitely build-
ing up the Socialist Party because it knows that in the coming
great class struggles in America it is going to need the Socialist
Party. This is a different process from that in other countries,
where the capitalist class only had to take the already existing
Socialist Parties and use them. Here in the United States they
cannot do it because such a Socialist Party does not exist. And
with regard to the Socialist Party the capitalist class is today in
the same position as the old philosopher who said: "If Go J
didn't exist, we would have to invent him". When the Socialist
Party does not exist, the capitalist class has to bring it into
existence and that is what it is doing in the United States today.
This of course creates many problems for the Socialist Party.
It creates opportunities for us more quickly, more thoroughly to
expose this political role of the Socialist Party than has been the
case in Europe. And especially, because the building of the
Socialist Party is so directly the business of the capitalists and
not of the workers, this is the determining reason why the So-
40
cialist Party has such leaders as Norman Thomas. The capital-
ists, if they are going to build the party, are going to be sure
they have a reliable man at the head of it. And they even lean
over a little backward and pick someone who cannot be accepted
by large masses of workers as a workers' leader.
But all of these elements of weakness in the Socialist Party
should not cause us to underestimate the political importance of
the Socialist Party and of the struggle against it. The Socialist
Party is growing in the United States. The Socialist Party, while
it draws the largest proportions of its gains from the middle
class, still draws tremendous elements from the workers who
really want socialism and think that the Socialist Party is the
party that stands for Socialism; who have illusions and who
have to be won away from the Socialist Party by an elaborate
process of experience and education. If in Europe the old strong,
established Socialist Parties are declining and losing their follow-
ing in ever larger numbers, in the United States the Socialist
Party is still on the upgrade, still growing and will continue to
grow for some time. Especially will it grow and become a men-
ace in this country if we Communists are not active and well
armed in the struggle against it.
One of the great weaknesses in our struggle against the
Socialist Party~has been that our comrades are too careless about
this struggle. They know the basic facts about the Socialist
Party, they know it is the party of treason to socialism, and
they think it is sufficient merely to proclaim this fact in general
to the workers, and that means exposing the Socialist Party. But
for the worker who is not acquainted with this long history of the
Socialist Party, who is not acquainted with international expe-
rience and especially the worker who has no experience or
detailed information about the growth and development and
functioning of the revolutionary party, the Communist Party —
he is not going to take our mere word for it. In order to win
the workers from the influence of the Socialist Party, it is neces-
sary to carry on the most patient, detailed explanation, informa-
41
tion, argumentation, with all of the workers who are under the
influence of the Socialist Party. We will never win these work-
ers away from the Socialist Party merely by calling them social
fascists. The workers who follow the Socialist Party are not
social fascists. Their leaders are social fascists, and it is they and
their program that give the social- fascist character to their party.
This must be explained to these workers in terms that they
can understand, in terms of their daily class struggles, relating
the policy of their Party to the question of wage cuts, the strug-
gle of the unemployed, the meaning of the policy of their party
when Norman Thomas speaks with J. P. Morgan for the block
aid plan, and so forth. These detailed data of the actual func-
tioning of the Socialist Party in relation to the needs of the
workers must be carefully collected, the facts established and
distributed widely among the workers. Then we must establish
the closest and most friendly contact with these workers and
discuss these questions with them in a friendly, comradely manner.
Of course, if we bump up against a real convinced social fascist
our friendly arguments will probably become unfriendly, espe-
cially when we begin to expose the actual deeds of Norman
Thomas and Hillquit. But the ordinary worker is glad to know
these facts if we will bring them to him in the proper way;
and the workers will never defend these leaders if we expose
them properly. In the development of this exposure, we will win
ninety-five per cent of the workers following the Socialist Party.
That is our task and if we go about it correctly, this will mean
not only winning that comparatively small number of workers
who follow the Socialist Party. The most important thing is
that by the proper approach and tactics and contact with the
Socialist workers, winning them away from the Socialist Party,
we at the same time establish the proper approach to the great
masses of the unorganized workers who are following Roosevelt
and Hoover today. And by the development of the struggle,
the fight for unemployment relief, the struggle against wage
cuts, the building of the Unemployed Councils, of the revolu-
tionary trade unions, the combining of these activities, the care-
42
^H
ful, stubborn, persistent educational work and agitation among
all of these non-party workers, we will succeed in building up a
real mass Communist Party in the United States. In this way
can the struggle be effectively conducted against fascism and
social fascism, which is the main support of the bourgeoisie in
the coming revolutionary struggles.
We are facing a situation today in which great mass battles
are maturing. We have to boldly and fearlessly go into these
mass struggles and organize and lead workers in them. At the
same time, we have to give these workers a political education
and make convinced revolutionists of them, make them under-
stand the issues that are involved. By combining action and
education in the present situation in the United States, in a
very short time the growth of the class struggle will be more
than met by the growth of a mass revolutionary party, the mass
Communist Party.
We should go out into the struggle against fascism with this
understanding that in this struggle in the next immediate future,
we must begin to bring the masses into the Communist Party,
begin to think in terms of 25,000 and a little later of 50,000 and
100,000 members and it is not too much to expect that in a
predictable future the American Communist Party will be a
real mass party with 100,000 members and larger hundreds of
thousands voting for us and organizing with us for the daily
needs of the workers. But it is no use to talk, or think, in
terms of these large figures except to the degree that we really
get down to work and organize our own forces for this task and
get the correct understanding and approach to these problems
of winning the workers, winning the individual workers, winning
the workers in groups, in large numbers, through struggle and
through education, for a mass Communist Party in the United
States.
43
APPENDIX
(From Speech of Earl Browder at Extraordinary Conference of
Communist Party U.S.A., held in New York City,
July 7-10, 1933.)
The New Deal represents the rapid development of bourgeois policy under the
blows of the crisis, the sharpening of the class struggle at home and the im-
minence of a new imperialist war. The New Deal is a policy of slashing the
living standards at home and fighting for markets abroad, for the simple purpose
of maintaining the profits of finance capital. It is a policy of brutal oppression al
home and of imperialist war abroad. It represents a further sharpening and
deepening of the world crisis.
It has become very fashionable lately to speak ab^uc the New Deal as Ameri-
can fascism. One of Mussolini's newspapers declares that Roosevelt is following
the path marked out by Italian fascism.
Norman Thomas has contributed a profound thought to the question and has
written several long articles in the capitalist press to point out that the New
Deal is "economic fascism," and that it is composed of good and bad elements,
many of them even "progressive" in their nature, if not accompanied by "political
reaction". And a group of honest revolutionary workers in Brooklyn recently
issued a leaflet in which they declared that Roosevelt and Hitler arc the same
thing. Such answers as these to the question of the essential character of the
New Deal will not help us much.
The development of Roosevelt's program is a striking illustration of the fact that
there is no Chinese wall between democracy and fascism. Roosevelt operates with
all of the arts of "democratic" rule, with an emphasized liberal and social-demagogic
cover, quite a contrast with Hoover who was outspokenly reactionary. Yet behind
this smoke screen, Roosevelt is carrying out more thoroughly, more brutally than
Hoover, the capitalist attack against the living standards of the masses and th«
sharpest national chauvinism in. foreign relations.
Under the New Deal we have entered a period of the greatest contradictions
between the words and deeds of the heads of government,
Hoover refused the bonus to the veterans and called out the troop* ftgtinal them,
causing Hushka and Carlson to be killed. Roosevelt gave the veterans a camp and
food and instead of sending the troops he sent his wife to meet them. But where
Hoover denied the bonus, Roosevelt also denied the bonus and added to it a cut
of #500,000,000 in pensions and disability allow*!!
Roosevelt's international phrases have only served to cover the launching of the
sharpest trade war the world has Been, with the United States operating on the
world market with a cheapened dollar, with inflation that is carrying out large
scale dumping.
Roosevelt's election campaign slogan of unemployment insurance and relief by
44
the federal government has been followed in office by refusal of insurance and
drastic cutting down of relief, the institution of forced labor camps, etc.
Under the slogan of higher wages for the workers he is carrying out the biggest
slashing of wages that the country has ever seen. Under the slogan of "freedom
to join any trade union he may choose" the worker is driven into company unions
or into the discredited A. F. of L., being denied the right to strike; while the
militant unions .ice being attacked with the aim to destroy them.
With the cry, "take the Government out of the hands of Wall Street", Roose-
velt is carrying through the greatest drive for extending trustification and monopoly,
exterminating independent producers and small capitalists, and establishing the
power of finance capital more thoroughly than ever before. He has turned the
public treasury into the pockets of the big capitalists. While Hoover gave
#3,000,000,000 in a year, Roosevelt has given #5,000,000,000 in three months.
As for the extra-legal developments of fascism, we should remember that it is
precisely in the South which is the basis of power of the Democratic Party, thai
the Ku Klux Klan originated and is now being revived. It is the South that
for generations has given the lie to all Democratic pretensions of liberalism by its
brutal lynching, disfranchisement and Jim Crowing of the Negro masses, and
upon this basis has reduced the standard of living of the white workers in the
South far below that of the rest of the country.
Large sections of workers in the basic industries in America, living in the com-
pany towns which ate owned body and soul by the great trusts, have for long been
under conditions just as brutal and oppressive as under Hitler in Germany today.
It is clear that fascism already finds much of its work done in America and
more of it is being done by Roosevelt.
But it would be incorrect to speak of the New Deal as developed fascism. With
a further rise of the revolutionary struggle of the masses, the bourgeoisie will turn
more and more to fascist methods. Whether a fascist regime will finally be esl lb-
lished in America will depend entirely upon the effectiveness of the revolutionary
mass struggle, whether the masses will be able to defeat the attacks upon their
rights and their standards of living.
What are the main features of the New Deal? Let us consider it as a whole,
as a system of measures, and bring together all the various features embodied in
new legislation and actions in Washington. We ran sum up the features of chfl
New Deal under the following heads: I) Trustification; 2) Inflation; 3) Direct
subsidies to finance capital; 4) Taxation of the masses; 5) The economy program;
6) The farm program; 7) Military and naval preparations; 8) The movement to-
ward militarization, direct and indirect, of labor.
MAIN FEATURES OF NEW DEAL
First, trustification'. Under the mask of the "radical" slogan of "controlled pro-
duction", the Industrial Recovery Act has merely speeded up and centralized the
process of trustification which has long been the dominant feature of American
45
economy. There is now being carried out a clean-up of all che "little fellows'*.
They are forced to come under the codes formulated by the trusts, which will have
the force of law. The "little fellows' " doom is sealed and they are busy mating
the best terms possible for a "voluntary" assimilation before they are wiped out.
Capitalist price-fixing has been given the force of law and the profits of the great
trusts are guaranteed by the government. As for "controlled production", we have
the word of an administration spokesman that "competition is not eliminated ; it
is only raised to a higher plane". That is quite true. The further strengthening
of the power of monopoly capital is intensifying all of the chaos, antagonisms,
disproportions within American economy. "Controlled production" is impossible
upon the basis of capit
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