The approach of the USC, is reminiscent of that of the Stalinists in China, attacked by Trotsky, where he notes,
“By its absurd conditions, which serve to paint the bourgeoisie in bright colours in advance, the draft program states clearly and definitely (despite the diplomatic and incidental character of its thesis) that involved here are precisely long-term political blocs and not agreements for specific occasions concluded for practical reasons and rigidly confined to practical aims.”
(The Third International After Lenin)
Similarly, the response to Paul Mason, who, like the USC, frames the Ukraine-Russia war as an “anti-fascist war”, much as he also characterises WWII, and, on which basis, he not only supports the war undertaken by NATO, but seeks to massively intensify it, the answer comes from Trotsky, in relation to the Spanish Civil War.
“The very concepts of “anti-fascism” and “anti-fascist” are fictions and lies. Marxism approaches all phenomena from a class standpoint. Azaña is “anti-fascist” only to the extent that fascism hinders bourgeois intellectuals from carving out parliamentary or other careers. Confronted with the necessity of choosing between fascism and the proletarian revolution, Azaña will always prove to be on the side of the fascists. His entire policy during the seven years of revolution proves this.
On the other hand, the slogan “Against fascism, for democracy!” cannot attract millions and tens of millions of the populace if only because during wartime there was not and is not any democracy in the camp of the republicans. Both with Franco and with Azaña there have been military dictatorship, censorship, forced mobilization, hunger, blood, and death. The abstract slogan “For democracy!” suffices for liberal journalists but not for the oppressed workers and peasants. They have nothing to defend except slavery and poverty. They will direct all their forces to smashing fascism only if, at the same time, they are able to realize new and better conditions of existence. In consequence, the struggle of the proletariat and the poorest peasants against fascism cannot in the social sense be defensive but only offensive. That is why León goes wide of the mark when, following the more “authoritative” philistines, he lectures us that Marxism rejects utopias, and the idea of a socialist revolution during a struggle against fascism is utopian. In point of fact, the worst and most reactionary form of utopianism is the idea that it is possible to struggle against fascism without overthrowing the capitalist economy”.
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