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.

  • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
    20·
    13 days ago

    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.