I grew up learning this definition of fascism:
[…] chủ nghĩa phát xít […] là nền chuyên chính khủng bố công khai của những phần tử phản động nhất, sô vanh nhất, đế quốc chủ nghĩa nhất của tư bản tài chính.
Source 1: Lịch sử 11, phần hai, chương IV, trang 80 (History 11[th grade], part two, chapter IV, page 80; in Vietnamese; in use from the 1990s to early 2000s).
That definition itself is translated from:
Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist, and most imperialist elements of finance capital.
Source 2: Thirteenth Plenum of E.C.C.I (March 1934 [December 1933]) “Theses of the Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International” in Theses and Decisions, pp. 3-4.
For longer definition, see the 1928 Programme of the Communist International, II. The General Crisis of Capitalism and the First Phase of World Revolution, 3. The Crisis of Capitalism and Fascism. Quote: “The Fascist system is a system of direct dictatorship, […] a terrorist dictatorship of big capital.”
For analysis, the 1928 Theses and Resolutions of the VI. World Congress of the Communist International (First Series), IV.24, p. 1571.
While i don’t fully agree with the notion that:
in the global south, class struggle must be subordinated to a national project of sovereignty and development.*
*(I would prefer to say that class struggle and national liberation + development depend on each other and go hand in hand)
it is wildly inaccurate and clearly revisionist to describe this as fascism. It has nothing to do with fascism.
The phrase:
third world bourgeois domination
is especially absurd and nonsensical. The “third world”, aka the global south, is defined by its relationship to the imperial core. By definition its bourgeoisie cannot be an independently dominating force. They can either be compradors subsumed into the greater imperialist system of extraction, or they can be subordinated to a project of national liberation, sovereignty and development. An independent pole of bourgeois power is no longer “global south” or “third world”.
To adopt a class reductionist rejection of national liberation is a crass vulgarization of Marxism. It goes against what Marxist-Leninists from Lenin to Stalin to Mao have always said.
Lenin explains how imperialism is an incarnation of capitalism and not something separate from it, Stalin emphasizes the revolutionary and progressive character of national liberation movements even when they are bourgeois in nature, and Mao clarifies the need to correctly identify primary and secondary contradictions at any given time and strategically prioritize the correct one (famously working together with the national bourgeoisie to defeat the imperialist invaders).
All three of them would conclude that national liberation is a necessity and a pre-requisite to the success of the revolutionary project. Could the Chinese or Vietnamese socialist revolutions have suceeded without winning liberation from colonialism? No.* National liberation requires an element of class struggle against comprador elements, but also opens up the path to the success of the class struggle which cannot be completed while the primary contradiction – imperial/neo-colonial domination – has not been resolved.
*(And i would also argue that their liberation from colonialism could not have been completed on a fully bourgeois path, and anyone serious about national liberation will eventually, as Cuba did, necessarily come to this conclusion, but that’s a separate discussion…)
You could even say that national liberation is itself a form of class struggle on the international level: the struggle of the global proletariat, as represented by the imperialized and colonized nations, against the global ruling class represented by the imperialist and colonial powers. The struggle against colonial-imposed underdevelopment is part and parcel of that struggle. Truly liberating the working class requires also improving their material conditions.
You are talking like trots don’t consider Stalin and Mao as revisionists.
Do… do these fuckers even know what the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia was?
So I’m in a Discord channel with the first user and I showed her this thread. Here’s her responses; very curious to see the counter-arguments:
Mao talks at some length in On Contradiction about this exact point, including the collaboration with the KMT during the imperialist invasion by Japan. colonized nations must seek self determination to become socialist, and sometimes that national liberation struggle will need to be the focus over the class struggle. many current socialist states came out of revolutions that were not initially particularly socialist.
the original post being responded to (by MomodouTall) is something that i could see myself saying in response to a very common western marxist error where they oppose national liberation movements that are insufficiently socialist. i’ve seen it with Venezuela, Iran, and even Palestine, which i think highlights the importance of not having a dogmatic insistence that the class struggle should always be paramount. especially for those of us living in or citizens of an imperial core country, we must have anti-imperialism as a core value, and that means supporting national liberation struggles that are sometimes quite liberal.
I don’t think she’s arguing that collaboration with socialists and reactionaries shouldn’t occur within the context of national liberation when necessary; rather she seems to be positing that if such an alliance is to occur that the socialists shouldn’t embrace class collaboration and abandon class struggle even in this context. The national bourgeoisie are still the class enemy of the workers and thus cannot be a force for true liberation even in the particular context of anti-colonialism since their ultimate class interest is aligned against the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is why she links it to classical fascism with its focus on class collaboration rather than class conflict. She is in solidarity with Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, etc. so there’s no question she holds a firm anti-imperialist stance and even acknowledges that without an international revolutionary movement that bourgeois-driven national liberation movements are a necessary evil. The crux of her objection seems to be that if the class struggle is subordinated to the national struggle then the class struggle becomes defanged and easily brushed aside with the socialists moving to the right or being completely purged by the national bourgeoisie. Thus class collab becomes suicide for the revolutionary movement and what comes after isn’t revolutionary or proletarian at all and leads to contradictions like communist parties running countries with beefy private sectors like Vietnam and China.
At least that’s how I understood her position. I’ll run this buy her to see if I explained it correctly.
That last part about Vietnam and China can be criticized on some other grounds, but I am too lazy and uneducated to really criticize it well.
yeah, that’s a pretty common way that people put it. i would also like to skip past the hard work of actually struggling through all of the contradictions of our present society. i look forward to them organizing a revolution on those grounds so they can show us how it’s done.
She elaborated on her position:
I know the first user. 💀
I know the second user, i already saw them have some dogshit takes maybe i should unfollow them
While I’m not on Xitter, yet I often saw this self-protective declaration: “following does not equal endorsement” (or its variants such as “following ≠ endorsement”). So I myself have no problem with you following them.
Anyway, do whatever you judge to be best!
I probably started following them when i started following a ton of leftists to get rid of all the liberalism on tl
