With the capitalists’ liberal fascist democracies falling apart from Europe to Latin America to the U.S., the scum-of-the-earth Brothers of Italy Party and its far-right coalition have swept to power in Italy. Reviving the slogan of “God, homeland, family,” bashing immigrants and Muslims, the gutter-racist Giorgia Meloni is set to become the country’s first openly fascist prime minister since her mass-murdering, anti-Semitic hero, Benito Mussolini, was shot like a dog by a communist partisan in 1945.
As the rulers prove—yet again—that the profit system cannot solve the crises facing the international working class, from inflation to climate change to Covid-19, the world situation is highly volatile. With deep splits between capitalist camps in every country, and as longtime alliances seem up for grabs, inter-imperialist rivalry is boiling in Ukraine. World war is no longer a remote possibility. The liberal bosses’ elite media, from the New York Times to Foreign Affairs, are warning that it’s just around the corner. “Empires can end abruptly, and when they do, chaos and instability ensues” (Foreign Affairs, 10/4).
Meloni’s cynical climb comes on the heels of the far right’s rise to power or prominence in Sweden, France, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, India, the Philippines, Brazil, and the United States. Though many workers are courageously fighting back, billions have been misled into one capitalist faction or the other. Our class interests have been obscured by the dark night that fell after capitalism was restored in Russia and China. It is time for Progressive Labor Party to raise the red flag and build a mass communist revolutionary party to smash fascism wherever it shows its monstrous head, in whatever form it takes.
Capitalist crisis opens the door for Small Fascists
Meloni’s breakthrough is the result of decades of miserably failed liberal misleadership. As of 2020, nearly 10 percent of the population in Italy—more than five million workers—lived in absolute poverty (Reuters, 6/16/21). Due to European Union sanctions against Russia, energy prices have soared over 90 percent in the last two years (The Local, 9/30). As workers struggled, outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank, made his priorities clear. He served the interests of the Big Fascists, the liberal finance capitalists who run—at least for now—the European Union and the U.S.
With the liberals in free fall and in the absence of a strong communist movement, the Brothers of Italy built an opposition following among disgruntled workers. Meloni’s party is a direct descendant of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the ultra-nationalist, fascist party formed by Mussolini’s supporters immediately after World War II. The U.S. and its allies turned a blind eye to these war criminals to keep a huge Italian Communist Party in check. They set the stage for the domestically oriented, “Eurosceptic” small fascists to come to power, even if that wasn’t the liberals’ plan.
Big Fascists losing ground
Among the imperialist world powers, Russia has the most to gain from the Small Fascists’ victory in Europe’s third-largest economy—and the U.S. the most to lose. Although Meloni opportunistically moved to “the center” in her campaign and backed Ukraine’s war effort, she has previously voiced her admiration for President Vladimir Putin. According to the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, “Given the current political climate, this is the best outcome the Kremlin could hope for today” (newsweek.com, 9/25).
Along with the racist pro-Russia regime in Hungary, and growing fascist movements in France and Spain, an unreliable Meloni government could disrupt the European Union and weaken the U.S.-led Big Fascists’ ability to build a multiracial military to go to war. The liberals’ disarray and lack of discipline were exposed in the aftermath of Italy’s elections. Although President Joe Biden raised concerns over Meloni’s triumph, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said he was “eager” to work with her (barrons.com, 9/26). Feminist icon and Big Fascist war criminal Hillary Clinton was quick to tweet out congratulations to the Brothers of Italy, which has limited legal abortions in every region it governs: “The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing” (Daily Beast, 9/28).
As the Big Fascists accelerate their war plans against China and Russia and strain to shore up their fraying alliances, they can’t afford to exclude open racists and sexists. As communists, we must lead our class to smash both outright Nazis like Meloni and the liberals who will try to use her as they’re forced to move toward their own brand of fascism.
Liberals pander to anti-immigrant terrorism
For decades, the European Union’s anti-immigration policies have terrorized millions of migrants. In 2018, Hillary Clinton called upon Europe’s leaders to show they are “not going to be able to continue to provide refuge and support….Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame” of Small Fascist nationalism (theguardian.com, 11/22/18). Translation: To stop hemorrhaging voters to far-right parties, the EU liberals must be willing to let migrants starve.
As the bosses pander, workers suffer. On July 29, a disabled street vendor from Nigeria, Alika Ogorchukwu, was beaten to death with his own crutch by a white man in Italy after asking for spare change (theguardian.com, 7/30). In 2018, a far-right nationalist wrapped himself in the Italian flag, shouted “Viva L’Italia!” and shot six migrants from Africa in a drive-by attack. When he was arrested, the racist shouted that he “wanted to kill them all” (BBC.com, 8/15). It was one more horrific example of how nationalism, racism, and terror are cut from the same cloth.
Our history shows us the path
Winning workers to fight for communism and reject the bosses’ politicians is essential to the future of the international working class. Although Benito Mussolini has been dead and gone for 77 years, it’s not enough to eliminate fascist dictators. We need to destroy for all time the capitalist system that creates them.
As communists, we must learn from history, from both our advances and setbacks. As fascism sharpens, Progressive Labor Party must make it clear that workers have only two choices. Will they take the side of nationalism or internationalism? Fascism or communism? Death or life? It is the historical task of Progressive Labor Party to lead the working class to choose communist revolution and a world without racism, sexism, or imperialist war. Join us!
Communists smash fascist dictators
As Benito Mussolini’s fascist party outlawed strikes and any independent labor movement, one of its first orders of business was to jail and kill communists. “Blackshirt” thugs roamed the streets and terrorized workers with impunity. The fascist regime drew financial support from both U.S. corporations and the U.S. government, which saw Mussolini’s forces as “perhaps the most potent factor in the suppression of Bolshevism in Italy” (janataweekly.org, 4/10). Beginning in the late 1920s, backed by the imperialist Allies, Mussolini brutally crushed resistance to Italian colonial rule in Libya, ultimately killing one third of the population. Beginning in 1936, he directed the imperialist conquest of Ethiopia, Somalia (then called Italian Somaliland), and Eritrea – again unopposed by the Western imperialists. The New York Times’ Italian correspondent, Arnaldo Cortesi, was an open cheerleader for these racist slaughters.
From the start, the communists rejected the Mussolini government appointed by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1922. After World War II broke out in 1939, they intensified their guerrilla war against both German and Italian fascist troops. Each communist fighting unit had a political commissar who promoted communist consciousness among the volunteers. Many organized workers in the cities, while others fought in the countryside. Throughout World War II, the Italian Communist Party led the underground opposition to fascism. At the forefront were the communist “Garibaldi Brigades,” which suffered the greatest number of casualties in the anti-fascist war in Italy.
