On the rise of the ultra-right and the tendency to fascism and how to fight them

Resolution voted by the International Conference Against Imperialist War held in Naples (Italy)

1. The capitalist crisis and the shocks of class struggle have progressively eroded and broken traditional political regimes. The shock waves from the waves of capitalist crisis  and bankruptcies in 2008 and again in 2020, with the US as its epicenter, and the strong upsurges in the class struggle which had an epicenter in the Arab spring of 2011, the Latin American uprisings of 2019 and the revolt against racist repression in US in 2020 have dealt a huge political blow to traditional capitalist political systems. The tendency to a new world war heightens this process. Political stability has become more difficult for the capitalist state, with governments often lasting only one term or even failing to complete it. Ruptures and the emergence of new and more extreme political formations have also become more frequent. Within this crisis of capitalist political regimes, a group of extreme right-wing forces has been advancing, including politicians with fascist or neo-Nazi ideas and origins. Although the bloc is heterogeneous and contradictory, bringing together ultraliberals and protectionists, Eurosceptics and Atlanticists, they are recognized as a mutually supportive force. All of them, from Milei, to Meloni, to Orban, to Marine Lepen, the AfD or Reform UK, receive Trump's support from the White House and have the Netanyahu regime in Israel as their political reference point. This does not contradict, of course, that very many bourgeois and imperialists who claim to be democrats or progressives defend and support Israel and its policies. The Israeli regime is one of the countries where fascist tendencies have evolved the most. There, ethnic cleansing and permanent war are the channels to militarize society and offer workers and middle classes the expectation of conquering a better life and land by exterminating their enemies. Internal dissidence is persecuted and crushed. Where there are legal limits to advance in ethnic cleansing by state means, auxiliary bands of armed civilians, in the form of colonization movements, complete the savage work. The international ultra-right's defense of Israel, including those who have been or remain anti-Semites, is explained by the political vindication of Zionism's unrestrained use of violence to build its state domination.
2. The arrival of Trump to his second government has given a boost to these ultra-right-wingers, and also to repressive tendencies in other governments. Trump's project has a Bonapartist form and tendencies towards advancing to open fascism. He is proposing to recover imperial greatness on the basis of militarizing society, commercial and military warfare, territorial annexationism, and the internal repression of political dissidents or minorities. Trumpism is often presented as a kind of meteorite that fell on US democracy. This is completely misleading. From the concentration camps of Japanese immigrants in World War Two, to McCarthyism, to Nixon’s offensive against radicalized sectors in 1968, to Bush’s Patriot Act in the early 21st century, the extended use of the state against political dissidents and minorities is “as American as apple pie”. Donald Trump is a pure, authentic product of US society , US institutions, and US capitalism. The attack on the Capitol was an attempted insurrection against a bourgeois democratic institution, but based on the narrative that “Biden had stolen the election ,” so they were defending “real American democracy and freedom!”. He has failed thus far to establish a fascist regime, which would imply a disciplining of the masses and even of the sectors of the capitalist class to which he belongs that he has not yet achieved. The rapid rupture between Trump and Elon Musk, who had installed himself as a key figure in his cabinet, has as its basis the severe contradictions between Trump's protectionist policies and the immediate interest of almost all the significant capitalist sectors in the US. The high-technology capitalists of Silicon Valley broke their traditional ties with the Democratic Party to support Trump but they have had growing clashes with the Trump administration over the effect of tariffs and migration policies on their operations. These political forces differ from the classical fascism of the early 20th century in that it has not emerged to confront a revolutionary upsurge of the working class. However, a decade ago there were processes of mass upsurges and street fighting that filled the capitalists with fear, ousted governments or prevented the advance of anti-worker reforms. From the struggle against the pension reform in France, to the fights in Argentina against Macri's reforms in 2017 or the Black Lives Matter movement that defeated in the streets Trump’s first attempt to impose a personal government, to the Chilean rebellion of 2019 or to the revolt of the Greek people against EU-IMF memoranda and the growth of strikes in the US and Europe. The ultra-right ‘s main function is to use state repression against the masses and reactionary agitation to block them from being an independent force . It uses for this purpose a vast development of political, police and judicial persecution centered on anti-communism, false judicial accusations and the farce of labeling "anti-Semitic" those of us who oppose the Zionist genocide.
3. The leaders of the ultraright intend to exert a strong personal power in their governments, putting bourgeois legality in crisis through an excessive use of presidential decrees, the persecution of opponents and the use of a justice system controlled by the executive power. The Bonapartist concentration of power of Trump, Meloni or Milei fulfills the same objective. But today they appear as a more aggressive tendency within bourgeois democracy and not a complete regime change. However, the capitalist governments supposedly of democratic tendency are those that have led in the whole stage an offensive against the masses in the social and political plane, including the repressive one. Democracy is not a shield against the right and it is reactionary to call the masses to choose between “fascism or democracy”. The pseudo-democratic capitalist forces give in and favor the right-wing agenda, sometimes criticizing it, and then collaborating with it as well, especially to oppose and even repress the independent mobilization of the masses. A recent example is that of the fights in Los Angeles against Trump's immigration raids, repressed by the local police force, the LAPD, under the command of the Democratic mayor, Karen Bass.
4. This new radical right, which has emerged on a global scale (not only in Europe and the US), is different from historical fascism. Its relationship with democracy is  also different. Today the boundary that separates democracy from fascism has been called into question. Ultra-right forces have passed supposed “sanitary cordons” and become part of parliamentary alliances and establish collaboration with traditional bourgeois forces. They have entered the capitalist political mainstream. Marine Le Pen was considered for years as completely unreliable to manage a crucial country of the European Union, such as France. Giorgia Meloni was initially the representative of a marginal far-right movement of the Italian right. No one could have thought that Giorgia Meloni would not only be the head of the Italian government, but also, in a context of political crisis in Germany and France, Meloni would become the pillar of the European Union today. Ten years ago, the far right appeared anti-European. Today, parties like Vox and Chegga are fanatically pro-EU.  The tendency towards authoritarian and repressive governments is of course more extended than the western ultra-right movements. Governments in India, Turkey, and South Korea strengthen their level of internal repression in accordance with the international trend that the new Trump government expresses. Radical right-wing movements have shown the ability to channel popular discontent, frustratio,n and protest. They appear as a deformed, reactionary response to the people’s rejection of the “establishment”. They are supported by global elites, but voted for by the poor and working classes.  They combine this presentation as “anti-system forces” with reactionary calls to recuperate “traditional family and values”, which are a call to social discipline behind the capitalist state and organized religion. They use the defeat of the socialist revolutions of the 20th century as a central point of their pro-capitalist popular agitation. Classical fascism was a counter-revolutionary reaction to the revolutionary ascent of the working class. Current ultra-right maintains a strong anti-communist discourse to express their objective of a violent class warfare against the labor movement, the left and the masses. At the same time, they have in their agitation been able to penetrate ideologically in important sectors of the exploited masses and even the working class. So the rise of fascism is a challenge for the revolutionary left, which needs to dispute in the first place the conscience of the working class and oppressed masses.
5. This bloc of ultra-right governments and forces share a fascistic ideological trait. They exploit the deterioration of traditional capitalist politicians and the real disasters of living conditions to which they have led with populist agitation, denunciations of corruption and ruling regimes. They have been able to exploit the hypocrisy of the center-left and democratic imperialism that speak of human rights, gender inclusion and humanitarian aims and govern for finance capital, the military domination of imperialism and the growing impoverishment of all the exploited masses. They have fed on all conspiratorial explanations about the modern world, just as the fascists of the past fed on the anti-Semitic libel of the secret world government of the Jews according to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Terraplanists, anti-vaccine agitators, the misogynistic and chauvinist reaction to feminism and the LGBT community, and the promotion of racism against immigrants. The common thread is how to channel an anger "against the system" so that it is not directed against the capitalist class but centrally against fractions of the exploited themselves, used as scapegoats. This ideological trait, coupled with a fierce McCarthyite anti-communism and defense of the capitalist system is the core of this fascistoid right wing that works to win not only capitalists and middle strata but the workers and impoverished masses to its demagogy. In their upside-down worldview, the immigrant worker is a great beneficiary of state benefits and millionaires are victims persecuted by excessive taxation. As grotesque as this sounds, it is a construction that we revolutionaries must dismantle with an enormous task of proletarian pedagogy, neighborhood by neighborhood, factory by factory and school by school. The reactionary initiative against the rights of women, immigrants and the LGBT community is an offensive that leads to the militarization of society, to the division and fractioning of the working class.
6. The danger posed by Trump's pro-fascist offensive from the first world power is enormous. He has sent resources and political support to many ultra-right governments and parties in Europe and Lain America.To confront his military and repressive action, as well as the hardening against the masses of the governments that emulate him, from Italy to Turkey or Argentina, is the first task for revolutionaries. We make use of the experiences of the 20th century to elaborate a triumphant strategy. The fact that this right wing has not managed to consolidate a complete political regime change to fascism should in no way lead to consider them less dangerous. The possibility of crushing fascism with less damage to the working class is when the egg of the snake is hatching. Later the damage will be immensely greater. All the forces of the working class, its parties, unions and organizations, as well as those of other exploited sectors, must act in common in the face of every fascist street demonstration or every act of state repression. The workers united front is the essential method to unite the forces that allow us to defeat state and para-state repression in the street and give strength and confidence to the working class. The practical content of the workers' united front is not limited to demonstrations and strikes. It must take all forms of direct action and form workers' self-defense committees to smash the ultra-right shock groups. The uprising of immigrants and other workers in Los Angeles is a living example of how to combat emerging fascism. The working-class character of the front does not exclude broader action. We encourage practical common action to defend all threatened democratic rights, in which in many cases we strike together with very diverse social and political sectors, including parts of the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie who participate in different forms of protest, without this being confused with a political front with sectors of the bourgeoisie. It is up to the revolutionary workers to defend every right and demand of all the exploited sectors, without any sectarianism, nor distinction between central or secondary problems. This is the platform of a united front of the working class and the masses that can defeat reaction.
7. Class collaboration, under the guise of popular or democratic fronts, is the main trap that can defeat the working class fight against the far right and fascist tendencies. The democratic or progressive bourgeoisies are as much clear enemies of the working class as the right-wingers. They are not a lesser evil. Any subordination of workers' mobilization to the electoralist and institutional schemes of the bourgeois parties that claim to "fight the oligarchy" will lead the workers to defeat. The Capitol uprising of January 6, 2021 was not confronted by a mobilization called by the mass organizations linked to the Democrats nor a general strike by the unions they lead. Lula's Popular Front also acted with passivity in the face of Bolsonaro's coup attempt in Brazil. The call to demobilize the masses and to trust in bourgeois justice leaves the pro-fascist movement intact. The few convicted at one time were amnestied when the political wind changed. The Popular Front of France formulated a technical agreement with Macron against the strength of Le Pen, desisting their own candidates in favor of the bourgeois parties of the "center". That same "center" days later formed a government excluding the Popular Front and with a political agreement voted by the same ultra-right that they used as a scarecrow. The conclusions of the Spanish Popular Front or the Allende government in Chile serve to teach that reformist pacifism and institutional blocs with the progressive bourgeoisie do not serve to stop the massacre of the working class. The Bolsheviks were able to stop the Kornilov coup by acting autonomously from Kerensky's popular-front government, and fighting for workers' government. The complete discredit of the US Democratic Party, the "leftists" of the European Union or the Argentine Peronists shows that they can in no way be the channel for developing a revolutionary alternative that can overcome the reactionary forces. Only in the framework of the workers united front can the struggles against the right and fascism serve to test the proletarian forces to fight for their own political power and to give a historic solution to the capitalist crisis.
8. The development of fascist tendencies is deeply linked to the trend towards world war. From the Middle East to Ukraine, the military limit of multilateral or proxy interventions has become increasingly clear. The possibility of the US or the European powers reverting to their decline as dominant powers and being able to proceed to an international redesign that favors them depends on their ability to mobilize their population, particularly their working class, as soldiers. The application of mass military conscription, however, would meet with enormous political and social resistance and would require the destruction of decades of economic, social and political gains in order to be enforced. The war economy poses the need to destroy social conquests and pour all fiscal resources into the military apparatus. In strategic terms, the severity of the capitalist crisis poses the need for a world war and at the same time, a change of internal political regime. The opposition of revolutionary workers to fascism, repression, and the militarization of society is linked to our struggle against imperialist war and Zionist genocide. With the clarity given by the immediate visualization of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza through viralization on social media, our epoch poses again the centennial challenge launched by the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism or Barbarism.