U.S. IMPERIALISM TODAY:
IS IT IN A PREPARATORY STAGE OF FASCISM?
Dave Silver
February 2005
While there may be other valid descriptions of the concept of fascism, I
like the one that Georgi Dimitrov used at the 13 th Plenum of the Communist
International in 1935; “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary,
most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” He
also emphasizes that fascism can assume “different forms” in different countries
depending upon historical, social, and economic conditions as well as national
and cultural characteristics. Dimitrov notes that where there is no broad
base, and where there may be an acute struggle within the fascistic bourgeoisie
itself Parliaments and other bourgeois Parties may continue to exist with
a modicum of legality.
Political scientist Lawrence Britt identified several common features of
all fascist regimes in an article titled “Fascism Anyone.” Among them are
extreme nationalism, identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause,
supremacy of the military, controlled mass media, obsession with national
security, protection of corporate power, suppression of labor, obsession with
crime and punishment, disdain for intellectual and the arts and fraudulent
elections.
And as Matthew Lyons states in a Public Research Associates article What
is fascism “it is hostile to Marxism, liberalism and conservatism, yet it
borrows concepts from all three.” Fascism rejects class struggle and workers
internationalism yet we see the Nazis calling their Party the “National Socialist
Workers Party.” Use is made of the liberal doctrine of individual autonomy
and rights while its vision of a “new order” clashes with the conservative
attachment to traditional institutions. The fascist approach to politics
is both populist and elitist. The former seeks to activate “the people” as
a whole against perceived enemies while the treatment of the will of the people
is embodied in a select group.
In an October 2004 article by David Oakes he calls attention to a kind of
“psychiatric fascism” by Bush appointee Dr. Sally Satee, who urges the Center
for Mental Health Services to encourage states to use more “coercive, intrusive
and involuntary care.” Oaks points out the fact that 42 states have passed
outpatient commitment laws allowing citizens to be court ordered to take psychiatric
drugs against their will while living peacefully at home. Which brings us
to the imperial USA and its genocide and torture abroad and Patriot Acts
and oppression at home.
Can we speak of a fascist USA today? Not yet. We now can see elements
of many common characteristics of fascist states such as protection of corporate
power, extreme nationalism and a dominant role for the military. However
finance capital (primarily transnationals and banks) have concluded that the
traditional right wing, assisted by the neo-cons can rule with the semblance
of bourgeois democracy without resorting to the “terrorist dictatorship” that
fascism represents. This is what Dimitrov called the “preparatory stages.”
He also warns us that without an effective and united struggle against the
reactionary measures in place at this stage, we will not be in a position
to “prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitate that
victory.”
Immediately after the defeat of Naziism, the C.I.A protected and brought
to the U.S. General Reinhard Gehlen, the German army’s intelligence chief
for the Eastern Front during World War2. Others included the SS Major Werner
Von Braun the rocket scientist and the butcher of Lyon Klaus Barbie. We perhaps
might call the appointment of Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney-General as a step
to move forward the “preparatory stage.” American fascism will be portrayed
as the custodian of the Constitution and “American democracy” wrapped in
the flag.
Dimitrov urged that all forces “dissociate themselves from the capitalist
Parties without delay.” It is as true in 2005 as it was in 1935. What is
needed urgently here is a mass Party of working people and particularly those
most oppressed, a People’s Front as it were, “to be put in opposition to the
trusts (now transnationals) and the banks.” With a final caveat; such a
Party will be neither Socialist nor Communist. But it must be an anti-fascist
party and must not be an anti-Communist Party.
