The reality was that history had shown, in 1848, as analysed by Marx and Engels, that the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie are not reliable allies, for the simple reason that their interests are fundamentally antagonistic to those of the working-class, even if they might share superficial and ephemeral interests in opposing some other force, for example, feudalism or fascism, or colonialism. In the period before the working-class becomes a significant force in its own right, the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie do not need to concern themselves with it. That's one reason, also, why, in these early bourgeois revolutions, the bourgeoisie does not even consider giving workers, or even the petty-bourgeoisie, the vote. But, once capitalism had grown significantly, and the workers did constitute such a force, the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie needed it to achieve their goal, but feared it pushing beyond them into proletarian revolution, i.e. the revolution in permanence, described by Marx.
That doesn't change the fact that workers, in order to move forward to Socialism, cannot be indifferent to the need to oppose the continuance of feudal relations, or attempts to turn back bourgeois-democracy, based on large-scale socialise capital – social-democracy – by the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, or attacks on bourgeois-democratic freedoms, by fascists. And, as Lenin pointed out, colonial revolutions have the same character as bourgeois-democratic revolutions, against feudalism. What it does mean is that, in all these instances, the workers have to recognise that they only share the same path as the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie for part of the way. At a certain point, the bourgeoisie will cosh the workers over the head, leaving them bleeding on the ground, as they rush off down a different path.
To guard against that, the workers have to ensure that they march separately, formed up in their own ranks, and with one eye on their unreliable, bourgeois allies. For the same reasons, the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie are always likely to make alliances with their former opponents, against their new proletarian opponents. The bourgeoisie not only adopted much of the frippery and lifestyle of the old landed aristocracy, but became owners of landed property, and married into the aristocracy itself. As both exploiters, they found it easy to establish their common class hostility to labour, which is why the early bourgeois demands for land nationalisation disappeared. The same is true with the relation between the comprador bourgeoisie to the colonial power, whose interests become closely interlinked.
As for fascism, it is a social force based upon the petty-bourgeoisie that sees its own approaching demise, as its squeezed by big capital, on one side, and organised labour, on the other. Its interests are hostile to both those of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, being based upon a reactionary, petty-bourgeois, “anti-capitalism”, most visible in the form of Strasserism, but also in the way former “national socialists”, like Mussolini, Mosely and Pilsudski adopt it, as their chosen vehicle. So long as this petty-bourgeois mass is opposed by the bourgeoisie, and its state, that state, itself, prevents the growth of fascism, as seen in the way the state put down the Jan. 6th “coup”, and has pursued not only the fascists involved, but Trump, as their figurehead.
There is no reason, in these conditions, for workers to subordinate their class struggle, against capital, to the idea of an alliance with the bourgeoisie against fascism. On the contrary, the lack of class struggle, and of progressive alternatives is one reason that fascism is able to grow, not only amongst the petty-bourgeoisie, but also sections of the backward workers. But, in the crisis phase of the long wave, such as that which ran from around 1914-26, and again from around 1974-86, when the bourgeoisie fears the threat from the workers, it allies with that petty-bourgeoisie, and utilises its fascistic methods, to attack the workers organisations, rights and freedoms. Its why the idea of an alliance with it against fascism is disastrously nonsensical.
So, for example, its when Italian workers present their own solutions to the crisis in the 1920's, by setting up workers' control, and workers' councils that Italian fascism is called upon. And the same is true in Germany, Austria and across Europe, including Britain. The US which only entered this period after 1929, saw a similar process, with prominent sections of the ruling class, such as Henry Ford being notable supporters of fascism in the US, and of Hitler in Germany. The greater the threat perceived by the bourgeoisie, from labour, the more they are led to seek to save their own skin by a reliance on the petty-bourgeoisie and its fascist organisations. There is nothing more idiotic, therefore, in such conditions, than appealing to that same bourgeoisie to form an alliance with workers to fight it, as the experience in Spain illustrated. In no conditions, therefore, is there a basis for workers to subordinate their class interests to those of the bourgeoisie, or to suspend the class struggle for the purpose of fighting fascism.
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