The following article is the third installment of Fascism and Revolution, excerpted from a PLP magazine article titled Rise of Fascism 1919–1934, available on our website under the “New Magazines” tab. In Part I, we examined the roots of fascism beginning in 1919, when the betrayal of social democrats and the vacillations of communist leaders led to a crushing defeat by Hungarian right-wing nationalist forces allied with the national army—setting the stage for fascism’s rise. Part I concluded with the Soviet leadership’s response to the growth of fascism and Hitler’s ascent in Nazi Germany.

By 1935, Soviet leaders were deeply alarmed by the spread of fascism in Italy and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. That year, the 7th Congress of the Comintern convened to determine a response to the fascist threat. In his main report, Georgi Dimitrov largely ignored the analysis of fascism’s roots in liberal democracy offered by R. Palme Dutt, instead charting a course for communist parties worldwide to collaborate in united fronts with liberal democrats to prevent further fascist expansion.

Part II traced the effects of the Dimitrov line of collaboration on the ensuing anti-fascist struggle. 

Part III traces the progression of fascism within capitalism to the present day, drawing on the important lessons of past anti-fascist struggles that we can glean in this period in order to defeat fascism once and for all!

Liberal democracies now dominated by fascism

Beyond China, Russia, and Iran, fascism is growing in countries that have until recently been liberal democracies—in Europe, in particular, but also in Asia and Latin America. Poland, Hungary, and Italy  all now have governments led by openly fascist parties, with the fascist Sweden Democrats party, founded by pro-Nazis, using racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric to drive Swedish politics to the right. In France and Germany, openly fascist parties are the main opposition to governments led by frail liberal parties. India is ruled by a government that is openly racist and conducts violent attacks against Muslim workers.

Poland, now hailed as a staunch U.S. ally, has disbanded its supreme court, shut down opposition parties, and consolidated control under the leadership of the openly racist ruling party. Hungary, a staunch ally of Russia, has done the same.  In Italy, an anti-immigrant ruling party, a direct descendant of the fascist movements of the early 20th century, is being welcomed into the pro-U.S. fold.

In Asia, Israel has long been a liberal democracy for Jewish workers and an apartheid state for Arab workers. The latest Netanyahu regime is moving to undermine the supreme court and consolidate power under a party leadership backed by an openly racist movement. Over the last fifteen years, Turkey has become more openly fascist, with the Erdogan government’s consolidation of power violently shutting down any opposition. What’s left of Turkey’s liberal democracy is essentially run by its military.

In Mexico, with the backing of a mass workers’ movement, the Morena Party of Lopez Obrador tightened its ruling party control by hobbling the country’s electoral commission, enabling his successor as president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to win in a landslide. In South America, Brazil and Peru are now feeble democracies with large fascist movements.

In Africa, where imperialism has historically built severely oppressive governments as a means of control, the weak democracies the U.S. once sought to promote are being replaced. Today, the number of Africans living under authoritarian states is higher than it’s been for most of the last twenty years. Before Covid-19, a growing number of African heads of state were hard at work to undermine elections. The pandemic accelerated this shift away from liberal democracy. It created an excuse to shut down elections in Somalia and Ethiopia, muzzle opposition figures in Uganda and Tanzania, and restrict media across the continent.

In fact, fascism is growing so rapidly around the world that Joe Biden’s speechwriters had to take notice. In his futile appeals for building a coalition to take on China and Russia, Biden stopped using the term “democracy” to describe the U.S. side and replaced it with the more ambiguous “freedom.”

Fascism is the future of U.S. capitalism

The U.S. ruling class is being strained to the breaking point by the economic and political crisis of capitalism. The war in Ukraine has already cost them over $100 billion. Their infrastructure is in tatters; inflation is wreaking havoc. The U.S. banking system is verging on a meltdown. The once high-flying tech industry has laid off more than 100,000 workers, with more to come. As workers’ real income continues to shrink, retail looks to be the next industry to drastically downsize.

As main rival China moves to a war footing, the infighting between dueling capitalist factions is paralyzing the U.S. ruling class and dividing the workers the bosses need for its short-staffed military. Despite barely reaching its recruitment goal in 2024, shortfalls of 20 percent in 2023 and 27 percent in 2022 have left the U.S. Army understrength. With all signs pointing to wider war, the U.S. bosses are not ready politically, militarily, or industrially.

While we cannot be certain which capitalist faction will come out on top, or whether the two sides will cut a deal, all signs point to drastic political changes to meet the needs of the U.S. ruling class. Although the bosses are still ruling under the guise of liberal democracy, and neither side is yet ready to jettison elections, they are laying the political basis to move closer toward full-blown fascism. Main wing media, including the New York Times, have decided that even a façade of impartiality poses too big a risk to the system. Judges are openly declaring that the law is not blind, and that they too must take sides in the battle. Liberal democracy in the U.S. continues to run on fumes only because neither faction is yet ready for civil war. 

The U.S. ruling class will keep moving toward fascism because it has no choice

Under Biden, most U.S workers and students suffered under the business-as-usual racist oppression of the ruling class. For immigrants, it was fascism, as Biden deported them in record numbers. There were protests, some of them quite large, based mostly in humanitarianism. Then came the 10/07/23 Hamas attack. Pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist protests grew, especially on college campuses. Claiming the protestors were anti-Semitic, the universities, pressured by the U.S. government, cracked down. Under the liberal Democrat administration, freedom of expression was muzzled.

Then Trump, running on a racist, anti-immigrant platform, was elected President. He doubled down on the crackdown. ICE became a full-fledged gestapo. Universities which did not toe the line on supporting Israel and punishing pro-Palestinian professors and students had their funding cut. Trump is ignoring the rule of law, exercising Executive Action to further his agenda.

Trump’s  high handed and often illegal acts intensified the opposition of workers and students to his policies. Pro-immigrant and pro-Palestine demonstrations grew. Many people felt Trump was a fascist, but they did not see that his actions, extreme though they were, actually were an extension of previous administration policies. Biden and his predecessors supported Israel, the U.S. policeman in the Middle East, to the hilt. Regarding immigrants, Obama was the deporter-in-chief.

The Democrats, seeing an opportunity, have taken the leadership of supposedly grassroots organizations opposing Trump to lead their members to the ballot box. They urge people to vote for Democratic candidates to turn Republicans out of office and restore “real democracy”. Many people, seeing no other way, will follow this course. 

However, as stated in the paragraphs above, whichever bosses’ faction wins the electoral struggle, workers will lose. The winners will need to discipline the losers to be able to organize the ruling class to further prepare for war with their imperialist rivals. As they do this, the working class will then feel the full brunt of a fascist heel on their necks, be it Democrat or Republican.

Three Lessons

This article has reviewed three lessons from the struggle to defeat fascism between 1934 and 1945. They remain important today.

FIRST LESSON: Fascism is the natural tendency of the decadent monopoly capitalist class. Even the few capitalist nations that avoided full-blown fascism, such as the U.S., Britain, and Canada, saw the rise of mass fascist movements financed by big business. No less important, they dramatically strengthened their central state apparatus. The tendency of modern capitalism to move toward fascism is an inexorable law of modern development.

SECOND LESSON: Liberal democracy leads to fascism as surely as any other process of social development. Dimitrov’s defense of liberal democracy was essentially a defense of the roots of fascism. In every case, it led to disastrous results. In France and Spain, popular front governments severely handicapped the workers’ struggle against fascism.

THIRD LESSON: The only alternative to fascism is communism. It follows that only communists can lead the struggle to defeat fascism. We have seen how both liberals and conservatives paved the way for fascism and joined the fascist governments. We have seen how revisionist social democrats caved in to fascism at every turn, apologized for it, and even preferred it to the “Bolshevik menace.”

Even after fascism was defeated in World War II, the problem was that capitalism remained—decadent monopoly capitalism. The fascist weed was cut down, but its roots remained to sprout new varieties in the postwar world. As long as capitalism exists, fascism will inevitably spring up out of liberal democracy in crisis.

In this critical period, the working class is faced with a stark choice between two paths. One follows the bosses into the hell of war and fascism. The other is the path of communist revolution. It’s the road to smashing capitalism and building an egalitarian society led by and for the working class.

November 13--baristas at many Starbucks coffee shops seeking a union contract went on strike. A picket line was set outside a Brooklyn location that 200-250 neighborhood people, strikers and members of other unions joined to call on people to not fill their caffeine needs at any Starbucks shops. “No Contract, No Coffee,” was one chant that rang out at the busy shopping area. Starbucks workers are taking a bold step against their greedy bosses who engorge themselves with the labor they are now withholding. But their fight needs to link up with the greater working class as a whole to smash all bosses and build a communist world, something no contract can provide.  

The Red Cup rebellion!

Calling it a “red cup rebellion,” the baristas are seeking an end to Starbucks’ long history of union busting and comes after six months of Starbucks refusing to offer new proposals to address workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay, and the resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practices.

This is an important time of year for Starbucks. They make festive red cups that are reusable and given with their drinks. It’s these red cups that are referred to in the cry of “Red Cup Rebellion.”

The Starbucks United Union is made up of 11,000 baristas at over 550 active stores. They are prepared to make this the largest and longest strike in company history. One teacher in the NYC school system interviewed made it to the picket from his school in another borough, saying “being a teacher, I know so many of my students’ parents and guardians work food service jobs like Starbucks. When parents are forced to work multiple jobs that don’t pay a fair wage, it has an obvious trickle down effect. I have seen many instances of students leaving early or coming to school late because they have to meet familial duties their parents don’t have time to do.Unfair wages and the insecurity that comes with it doesn’t just hurt workers, it affects our young people’s education too.”

Fightback is growing

The strike has now escalated to 95 stores in 65 cities. It is an open ended action with no set end date. The first night in Brooklyn, several speakers addressed the problem of affordability and low wages for an expanding number of jobs throughout the country. 

Probably the best speech was given by a three year employee of Starbucks who recently moved to NYC from a store in Durham, North Carolina. She connected the problems of Starbucks and other workers to capitalism. She said her shop in Durham “didn’t have fair work weeks, didn’t have predictable schedules, didn’t even have requirements for employers to give five people breaks, no matter how many hours they worked.”

She went on to explain that the only reason there are some work protections here is that fast food and retail workers in NYC organized and fought for them. Speaking for many of the strikers and their supporters that night, she went on to say “it ultimately comes down to a question of power - we live in a time of unprecedented consolidation of power in the hands of the corporate elite that owns and controls every aspect of our lives.”

Lastly she said, “Every action, whether it’s a union vote, a walkout, is an act of rebellion against an unjust and unfair exploitative system, the capitalist system… It’s about time we tap into our collective power and win. Not just at Starbucks but everywhere.”

Baristas need communism

The evening ended with someone at the microphone singing an old Progressive Labor Party (PLP) song from the 1970’s record released back then, “Power to the workers, power to the working class,” and everyone, all 200 or so still there sang along. Many of both the picketers and supporters seem to agree that the red cup rebellion needed to turn into a red revolution. 

Since then, the strike has expanded, and striking Starbucks workers upped the ante on November 19 when they led a large protest in York, Pennsylvania at a distribution center for coffee, the largest in the Northeast. They protested and blockaded the site along with their allies. The strike has expanded. But the strikers need to expand the anti-capitalist thinking best represented by the NYC Starbucks worker on the first night of the strike.

But how? The Progressive Labor Party sees the importance of the increasing militancy within the working class. This is reflected in the wave of resistance to ICE, in the resistance to the National Guard being sent to cities to fight “crime.” A wave of resistance to rising fascism was shown by seven million marchers on No Kings Day. Some say the resistance is against President Donald Trump, but many of his  actions  were preceded by a wave of attacks on immigrants and students on campuses while the Democrats were in the White House. Throughout the world the ruling classes in many countries are joining in an arms race rather than meeting the needs of working people.

The economic competition between China and the U.S. are all leading to an increased danger of war. The word in the street that one million voters in NYC repeat is “change.” The Progressive Labor Party sees the only way out of the morass of capitalism is the fight for an egalitarian system called communism that puts the working class in the driver’s seat in every factory, town, city and community here in the United States and internationally. Only revolution can make that happen. Revolution can only happen if millions of people take up the fight throughout the world. It’s for that reason we are organizing an international party with one goal, power to the workers! Join a Progressive Labor Party club and bring that closer to fruition.

The Donald Trump  wing of U.S. capitalist fascism is busy attacking a whole range of universities, firing, disciplining and silencing faculty who oppose the Israeli/U.S. genocide in Gaza (American Association of University Professors, 11/25).  Trump’s targets range from the presidents of big private colleges like Penn and Harvard, through tenured professors at major public colleges like California and Texas, to unprotected adjunct lecturers at mass-education universities, like the “Fired Four” at Brooklyn College (CHALLENGE, 10/29)). Protesting students, of course, have been attacked much harder, with arrests, beatings, jail and deportation.

Professors are fighting back through mass organizations like the AFT or NEA unions, the AAUP (Association of American University Professors), and CAHE (Coalition for Action in Higher Education). CAHE organized a national day of action last April 17 which held events that day on 200 campuses (LA Daily Post, 4/17). Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades in these organizations, which now have a growing record of fightback, are urging their members to go all the way to fight for communism.

Communism organizes knowledge for the working  class

Communist teaching and learning have been organized--and will be again--with mass worker participation and decision-making, to create science, art, history, music, literature, and philosophy by and for the entire working class, internationally. It is a long way from the current racist, capitalist, imperialist university to a university “of the whole people” across the globe! Maybe it would look nothing like the current socially isolated campuses, but be more integrated into workers’ lives both at work and at home, in a process of continuous teaching and learning for everyone. It would also allow and find the time for many to dig deeper into the full-time specialized training a workers’ world would need. Opportunities for all workers to deepen their special knowledge and ability to contribute at a higher level would be wide open and encouraged by the Party (Paul Gomberg’s concept of “contributive justice” as a corrective to the bosses’ racism, sexism, and contempt for the working class).

Communism promotes critical thinking by and for every worker

It is important for a communist party to bring the idea of fighting for communism to professors fighting back now against rising fascism. Fascism has always gone after critical thinking and anyone who practices it seriously. Liberalism is for it, but in a limited way. Communism is for a thorough, universal, collective deepening of critical thought, a high level of literacy, and a grasp of scientific knowledge throughout the entire working class, part of workers taking power, part of workers being in charge at last, part of enriching workers’ minds and unchaining their full creativity.

Liberal professors see these attacks as “discriminating against dissent” and undermining academic freedom to teach and learn, and have brought strong legal cases against the Trump regime, some of which might succeed. But capitalist liberalism is a dead end, the good-cop twin of bad-cop fascism.  While PLP unites with our liberal co-workers in this struggle, we insist on pointing out that it’s not just Trump, it’s capitalism. And we are seeing that many of our friends agree--even if they don’t yet see communism as the alternative.

Billionaires out of our classrooms!

The liberals are targeting billionaires like Marc Rowan, sun-god CEO of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, who wrote the Trump “compact,” a deal university administrators are supposed to sign with Trump to support his agenda. Rowan’s office building in Manhattan was blasted by an AAUP/CAHE/campus union rally on November 7. Penn’s Wharton Business School then announced Rowan would be replaced as board chair next year. No great victory perhaps--maybe Rowan just wanted to go lie in the sun?--but bosses do feel it when you bring a big loud picket line outside their window. It helps to feel a little of the power we will  have when we unite as the whole working class. PLP professors are doing our best to urge this growing mass movement in the direction of a mass communist party. It can happen here!

From New York City and Colombia to Burkina Faso and Palestine, nationalists claiming to challenge U.S. imperialism are once again having their moment in the sun—just as the U.S. renews threats to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela (see editorial on page 2). U.S. imperialism, shaken by the rise of rival Russian and Chinese imperialism, is lashing out like a wounded animal. And yet everything these nationalists present as “new” for the working class is just the same old capitalism dressed up in modern clothes. In the 21st century, no one sold that package with more charisma than Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chávez.

Today’s Latin American “Pink Tide” invokes the imagery of the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the 1970 election of Salvador Allende in Chile. But beneath their red banners, most of these projects have been rooted in the same 19th-century bourgeois liberal romanticism of José Martí and Simón Bolívar—and in the tradition of populist, developmentalist rulers like Juan Perón in Argentina and Rómulo Betancourt in Venezuela. All insisted they were on the side of the poor; all defended national forms of capitalism. None represented workers’ power.

After the communist-led defeat of fascism in World War II, the world’s colonial empires began to crumble. Millions of workers across Africa and Asia—often inspired by the Soviet Union and revolutionary China—rose up against centuries of European domination. But because the international communist movement failed to push these struggles toward genuine revolution (a process PLP analyzes in Road to Revolution III), post-colonial capitalism filled the vacuum. Wrapped in militant language, this new school of “developmentalism” disguised itself as socialism while keeping capitalist property relations intact.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s India became the model. Under the banner of “socialism,” Nehru promoted Import-Substitution Industrialization (ISI), using high tariffs and state planning to strengthen domestic capitalism and reduce dependency on imported goods. Limited welfare reforms lifted living conditions for millions who had suffered under British rule. But capitalism with welfare is still capitalism. That is why national liberation leaders across Africa, Asia, and Latin America—from the Non-Aligned Movement to later Pink Tide governments—won support from domestic capitalists and, eventually, became pawns in imperialist rivalries. In every case, without an international communist movement leading the working class, these projects were misled, co-opted, or crushed.

21st Century Socialism: Big Promises, Big Betrayal

For generations, Venezuela’s land and wealth were concentrated in the hands of families rooted in the old post-independence oligarchy. With some of the world’s largest oil reserves and rich agricultural potential, Venezuela was always a battleground between factions tied to U.S. interests and those seeking a more independent national path. By the 1980s, IMF-backed austerity set the country on fire.
Then came 1989: the Caracazo. A spontaneous uprising against fare hikes and budget cuts was met with police and military massacres that killed hundreds—possibly thousands—of workers. The Caracazo shattered the legitimacy of pro-U.S. political parties and became the gravitational center of all modern Venezuelan politics.

In 1992, a failed military coup led by Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez and fellow officers captured the imagination of millions. After prison, Chávez won the presidency in 1998, promising a “Bolivarian Revolution” funded by oil wealth and supported by alliances with Russia, China, and others. Ultimately, Chávez’s legacy was built on the illusion that a “multipolar world” could let Venezuela’s “21st Century Socialism” survive by maneuvering rival imperialisms against each other.

Mass mobilizations defeated the U.S.-backed coup attempt in 2002, and the simultaneous rise of allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Brazil accelerated the Pink Tide. Millions gained access to subsidized food, healthcare, electrification, and clean water. Internationally, Chávez’s fiery anti-imperialist speeches electrified youth disgusted by the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. For many, Venezuela looked like a genuine alternative.
But—as everywhere else—the content of this “socialism” left capitalism intact. Venezuela remained dependent on oil exports. When global prices crashed in the 2010s, the government could no longer finance its reforms. After Chávez’s death, Maduro inherited a collapsing economy, deepening shortages, and intensifying U.S. sanctions. His efforts to salvage the Bolivarian project have withered, leaving Venezuelan workers exposed once again to imperialist competition—with the threat of war growing by the day.

Progressive Labor Party’s task is to expose the false promises of nationalists and liberal reformers—from NYC’s Mamdani to Maduro to Colombia’s Petro—and fight for the only force capable of ending imperialism once and for all: communism.