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Vol. 73/No. 20      May 25, 2009

 
Workers defense guards
needed to fight fascist gangs
(Books of the Month column)
 
Printed below are excerpts from Fascism and Big Business by Daniel Guerin, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for May. Written in the mid-1930s, the author shows how fascism arises from the specific conditions of capitalist social crisis. At first covertly, then increasingly openly, layers of big business financed and promoted the fascist movements in Italy and Germany. Guerin contrasts the fascists’ initially radical anticapitalist demagogy with their moves to shore up the capitalist profit system once they form a government. The piece below is from the chapter titled “Fascist strategy on the march to power.” It describes the role of reformist leaders in relying on the capitalist state to counter fascist threats instead of direct action by the working class. Copyright ©1973 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY DANIEL GUERIN  
How did the labor movement defend itself against the fascist gangs during this first phase? In the beginning, the bold military tactics of the Black Shirts or Brown Shirts took the workers by surprise, and their reply was feeble. But they would have quickly adapted themselves, spontaneously, to their adversary’s tactics if their own leaders, afraid of direct action, had not systematically put a brake on their militancy.

Let us be careful not to reply to fascist violence, the reformist leaders said in both Italy and Germany; we should arouse “public opinion” against us. Above all, let us avoid forming combat groups and semi-military bodies, for we should risk antagonizing the public authorities, who, we are confident, will dissolve the semi-military groups of fascism! Let us not borrow the weapons of fascism, for on that ground we are beaten in advance.

These legalistic and defeatist tactics tended to profoundly demoralize the working class, at the same time as they increased the enemy’s audacity, self-confidence, and feeling of invincibility. If from their first exploits the fascist bands had come up against organized proletarian resistance and suffered harsh reprisals, they would have thought twice before undertaking “punitive expeditions” or raids on proletarian meetings. They would also have gained fewer recruits. And the victories won by the proletariat in the anti-fascist struggle would have given it just that “dynamic force” which was lacking.  
 
In Italy
The Socialist and union leaders obstinately refused to reply to fascism blow for blow, to arm and organize themselves in military fashion. “Fascism cannot in any case be conquered in an armed struggle but only in a legal struggle,” insisted the Battaglia Sindacale. In the province of Rovigo, union leader Matteotti and the labor exchanges gave the word: “Stay home: do not respond to provocations. Even silence, even cowardice, are sometimes heroic.” As they possessed contacts in the state apparatus, the socialists on several occasions were offered arms to protect themselves from the fascists. But “they rejected these offers, saying that it was the duty of the state to protect the citizen against the armed attacks of other citizens.”

They relied on the bourgeois state to defend them against the fascist bands. Hence in the spring of 1921, they took seriously Prime Minister Bonomi’s attempt to “reconcile” the Socialists and fascists. They imagined that the fascists would dissolve their semi-military bodies on their own initiative. In the Chamber, Turati, turning toward Mussolini and his friends, exclaimed in a pathetic tone: “I shall say to you only this: let us really disarm!” The “peace pact” was signed August 3.

But a few months later the fascists denounced the “pact,” and civil war was resumed. Then the Socialists looked to the public authorities to dissolve the fascist bands. On December 26, the government did send a circular to provincial governors calling for the occupation of the headquarters and confiscation of all arms of the semi-military bodies, as well as for the prosecution of those who organized them. But the carrying out of these measures was left to the local authorities, and the governors and their assistants limited themselves to a few raids directed, as might be expected, chiefly against the People’s Houses and workers’ organizations “to confiscate,” writes Rossi, “the few arms that might remain there, thus leaving the way clear for the fascist onslaught.”

To make up for the shortcomings of the Socialist and trade union leaders, a number of militants of various tendencies—revolutionary syndicalists, left socialists, young socialists, Communists, Republicans, etc.—together with several ex-officers, created in 1921, at the instigation of a certain Mingrino, an anti-fascist militia, the Arditi del Popolo. But this militia was recognized officially neither by the Socialist Party nor by the Federation of Labor, and in fact received only their hostility. “The Arditi del Popolo,” mocked the Avanti on July 7, 1921, “perhaps has the illusion that it can dam up the armed movement of the reaction… .” The Socialist Party, when it signed the “peace pact” with the fascists, was only too happy to seize the occasion to “repudiate the organization and acts of the Arditi del Popolo.” The Communists in their turn ordered their members to leave the militia on the pretext that the Arditi del Popolo included “doubtful” elements, “without class consciousness.” They organized separate “Communist Squadrons,” which, except for a few actions undertaken in Milan, Trieste, etc., played a rather obscure role. The Arditi del Popolo, with the proper leadership, could have become the rallying point for all the proletarian forces who were ready to reply to fascism with arms. But left to themselves, repudiated by the two proletarian parties and the Federation of Labor, they became a real force only in a few isolated towns.  
 
 
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