Some months ago, I ran a series on Paul Mason's latest views on how the Left in the Labour Party should respond to the election of Keir Starmer as Leader. In it, I set out that Paul's approach was determined by his fear that we could be heading towards fascism. His approach inside the Labour Party, then mirrored the approach he wants to pursue outside the Labour Party, which is one of liquidationism, and a subordination of the interests of the working-class to those of the liberal bourgeoisie. In other words, it is a call for the adoption of thee failed Popular Front strategy adopted by Stalinism in the 1930's, a strategy they had adopted with equally disastrous consequences during the 1920's.
Paul is now setting out these ideas in a forthcoming book, on how to fight fascism. The recent invasion of the US Capitol building by Trump supporters, has acted as a useful means of Paul setting out his ideas to be elaborate more fully in the book. Unfortunately, as I've set out, in detail, in that series of posts on Paul's previous arguments in relation to how the Left should respond to Starmer, all that his argument really amounts to is a rehash of those old failed Stalinist tactics of the Popular Front. In fact, Paul illustrates this by his comment that, the classic Marxist definition of fascism is that given by Dimitrov in 1935, and used as the basis of arguing for the Popular Front. Indeed, its odd that Paul, as a former Trotskyist should argue that the classic Marxist position on anything is to be found in the writings of any Stalinist, let alone on fascism, given the appalling record of Stalinism in opposing fascism either as a result of its disastrous Third Period ultra-leftism, or its equally disastrous Popular Front strategy.
If you want to read the classic Marxist positions on fighting fascism, and on the disastrous role played by Stalinism, its necessary to read these works by Trotsky:
1) On The Anglo-Russian Committee, which sets out how the Stalinists alliance with the leaders of the TUC, led to the defeat of the 1926 General Strike. One of the first examples of how the Popular Front strategy demobilises the working-class, simply in order to retain a diplomatic relationship with the purveyors of bourgeois ideas in the workers' movement.
2) Problems of The Chinese Revolution, which is a series of documents written by Trotsky from the time, describing how this same Popular Front strategy, pursued by Stalin, and his followers, led to the defeat of the Chinese revolution in 1927, and the slaughter of thousands of Chinese communists at the hands of Chiang Kai Shek, who Stalin had not only forced the Chinse communists into an alliance with, but whose Kuomintang, Staling had even allowed into the Communist International.
3) Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It
4) For A Workers United Front Against Fascism In Germany
6) The Action Programme For France, which sets out how the workers should defend bourgeois-democracy against fascist attacks on it, not by subordinating themselves to the liberal bourgeoisie, or their representatives in the workers' movement, but by methods of proletarian struggle, maintaining and deepening their criticism of the social-democrats and reformists, whilst demanding of them a United Front on the streets to fight the fascists - March Separately, Strike Together.
7) Writings On The Spanish Civil War, in which Trotsky outlines again the disastrous consequences of the Popular Front strategy, promoted by the Stalinists and adopted by the centrists of the POUM, CNT, and the reformists of the Socialist Party, in demobilising the working-class, and leading to the victory of reaction.
The problem with Paul's argument is fairly obvious to see. The only variable in these situations is the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is the ruling class, and, as ruling class, the state acts to defend and promote its interests. It does so, because those interests are also its interests. They are the interests of the dominant form of property in society, which is the basis of the continuation and prosperity of the state. In relation to fascism, its a binary decision for the ruling-class, and its state. Either it needs fascism, in some particular set of conditions, or it does not. If it does, then the state will stand behind the fascists, if the situation demands that bourgeois democracy itself be suspended, then the state will even facilitate the fascists in undertaking such a coup. If not, then not only will the state not stand behind the fascists - though this does not mean that individual racist cops and so on may not align themselves with them - but, if it feels they are themselves a threat to the rule of the bourgeoisie, it will move against them.
So, Paul's argument faces the same contradiction that Trotsky outlines in relation to the Spanish Popular Front. Paul wants workers to demobilise themselves, to drop their own independent organisation, and programme, and their criticism of the bourgeoisie, and its representatives in the labour movement, in order to form an electoral alliance with those parliamentary representatives of the bourgeoisie. But, if the bourgeoisie has already decided that it must resort to fascism, because its own rule is challenged by the working-class, and its representatives, why would they do that?
In Spain, the Socialists, Poumists and anarchists, along with what was, at first a tiny Stalinist Party, adopted that Popular Front strategy, but the reality was that the bourgeoisie itself had already gone over to Franco and the fascists. The Liberal bourgeois politicians, only kept their seats in parliament, because of the Popular Front, but in reality, they represented nothing, the social base upon which they rested politically, the liberal bourgeoisie, had deserted them for the fascists. As Trotsky puts it, these liberal politicians represented only a ghost class. And, because the bourgeoisie, as ruling class had gone over to Franco and the fascists, so too had its state. Indeed, Franco is the clear representation of that state, and its bodies of armed men.
To fail to see and understand this is to fail to understand the nature of the state as a class state, operating in the interests of the ruling class, and to defend the dominant form of property. It is also to confuse the state with governmental office, which Paul repeatedly does. The winning of elections and forming of a government is not at all the same thing as the takeover, or control of the state. Just as Mossadegh in Iran, or Allende in Chile, other than you can't because a naïve, belief in the neutrality of the state, and confusion of state power with governmental power, got them killed in coups organised by the state, against that governmental power.
Appealling to liberal politicians, who have lost their social base amongst the ruling class they represent is not just pointless, because it is continuing to see things in terms of purely parliamentary struggle at a time when the battle has already shifted to the streets, but it is to demobilise the working class itself, by misleading them, by implying that they have shared interests with their enemies within the ruling-class, that everything hinges on the control of the government, and so on.
So, in 1934, when the Popular Front of the Stalinists and Socialists took office in France, one of the first things it did, was to turn against striking workers, demobilising a massive, and rising strike wave, through which the workers were winning large pay rises, better conditions, rights for union officials and so on. The direct struggle of the workers was undercut, and instead transferred to a purely parliamentary battle. The Popular Front did pass some laws to improve wages and so on, but not only did this only rubber stamp the gains that workers were already winning by their own actions, but most of it was wiped away by rising inflation, and soon after the Popular Front even rowed back on these reforms, as it diverted money into militarism ahead of the war with Germany.
The same was true in Spain, when the Popular Front government of Azana sent troops to strike break, and so on. All of this is done in order to retain the alliance of liberal bourgeois politicians, who, in reality, no longer represent any social base.
On the other hand, if the bourgeoisie has no need of the fascists, it will not stand behind them, and nor will its state. The bourgeoisie has no desire to hand over its more or less direct control over the government, which it achieves via bourgeois democracy, unless it absolutely has to. Fascist governments, imply such a lack of direct control, they imply huge waste as society's revenues go to finance the large fascist bureaucracy that arises, and fascism, like military juntas are generally inefficient and wasteful. The bourgeoisie has no intention of allowing such conditions to arise unless it absolutely has to to hold on to its position as ruling class.
So, in those conditions, the state of that ruling class is not going to stand behind the fascists. On the contrary, as with the storming of the Capitol building by Trump's fascist thugs, they will stomp on them hard, and as will be seen in the US in coming weeks, it will not stop with just an initial policing job. The state will press its offensive against the fascists standing behind Trump, and indeed that is not likely to be just in the US, but will spread to where similar fascist forces based upon the petty-bourgeoisie have been exerting their influence in other countries.
If the hugely powerful capitalist state has no reason to back the fascists, and rather mobilises against them, there is then also no reason why workers would subordinate their own programme and organisation to that state. If the fascists turn out ion the streets, and the state mobilises against them, all well and good, but it doesn't change the facts that we need to explain to workers that, in other conditions they will be standing on the same side against us. If the state seems like it might succumb to a fascist attack upon it - which in most cases, particularly in developed economies, is most unlikely given the size and power of the state - then we can fight alongside it on the streets, but not by aligning with it, or liquidating our organisations into it, or subordinating our programme to any alliance with it.
In other words, the problem with Paul's strategy is that, at times when the working class might need an alliance with the bourgeoisie, and its state to defeat fascism that is precisely the time when the bourgeoisie is not going to enter into any such alliance, because it has already allied with the fascists to defeat the working-class. Any alliance with bourgeois politicians, in such conditions, is purely a mirage, because those politicians have themselves lost their social base in the bourgeoisie. In conditions when the bourgeoisie does not need fascism to beat down the working-class, then it can simply use its state to defeat a rising fascist menace, and so the fascists cannot represent any real threat, so that there is no need for workers to form any kind of alliance with the bourgeoisie.
Paul's argument and analysis is purely subjective. He argues that the fascists are a threat to both the ruling class and the working-class. His analysis is wrong, because he sees the social base of the fascists as being a fraction of capital, whereas it is the petty-bourgeoisie, which stands in opposition to the dominant form of capital, i.e. large-scale, socialised industrial, and mostly multinational capital. Actually, admitting that this rabble comprises this petty-bourgeois layer, rather than a fraction of capital, Paul says that its rise is independent of class, and motivated by fear of a range of issues "by a fear of freedom. Their number one concern is BLM, and the possibility of black liberation. They see the police, the thin blue line with a licence to murder black people, as the last line of defence. And so for them, the prospect of even a moderate liberal government ensuring the rule of law prevails, is the end of the world. And their wider concern is the end of the fossil fuel economy, the end of patriarchy and women’s oppression, the end of structural racism, white privilege, property rights etc."
But, of course, the ruling class itself is not threatened by any of those things. It has even embraced many of them. Its true that these backward petty-bourgeois elements and the lumpen elements associated with them might hold all of these bigoted views, but the point is could this amorphous rabble ever convert that into a seizure of power, and an ability to create a state on the basis of it. The answer is no. The petty-bourgeoisie in the US amounts to around 70 million people, and if all mobilised in a unified force they would be very powerful. But, that was always he case with the peasantry, of which this petty-bourgeoisie is the modern day equivalent. The thing is they never can form such a unified force. Its why they always need a charismatic, Bonapartist leader to impose some kind of unity upon them, but the amorphous nature of such a rabble means it is riven with contradictions that continually threaten to blow it apart.
As Trotsky wrote,
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