Tjen Folket Media: The Elections and the Alleged and Real Threat of Fascism

We hereby share an unofficial translation of an article published by Tjen Folket Media on September 17.

On September 6, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the largest Party in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt. This is Germany’s least populous state and is located in the center of Germany. The Party received nearly half of the votes and fell just short of the number of seats needed to secure a majority in the state parliament.

The more established bourgeois Parties maintain a so-called “firewall” against the AfD, meaning they have pledged not to cooperate with the AfD in any way. The Party is labeled “extremist,” in part because it wants to withdraw German support from the war in Ukraine, it wants Germany to leave the Eurozone, and it says it seeks good relations between Germany and the United States, Russia, and China.

Some members of the Party also speak of “remigration,” a concept aimed at expelling people of foreign origin, even if they hold German citizenship. Furthermore, a number of Party members seek to rehabilitate the German military’s role in World War II in particular.

The tactic of the other leading bourgeois Parties—both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD)—has been to try to isolate the Party and label its members as Nazis, extremists, and agents of Putin and Xi Jinping. As a result, these Parties—which are extremely unpopular among the masses after years of high prices and the decline of public services—have only reinforced the AfD’s “image” as an alternative to the status quo.

This resembles the situation in Sweden, where the Sweden Democrats experienced explosive growth from 2002 to 2022, and the situation in England, where Reform UK has emerged as a major new Party. In all these countries, the demonization of these Parties only serves to fuel their growth. At the same time, the more established Parties can mobilize voters against the threat posed by the “fascists.”

This reveals one of the key functions of such Parties: the attempt to reverse the trend of the masses turning their backs on elections. This has been largely successful in several of these countries. Voter turnout has increased in recent elections, albeit temporarily.

Furthermore, the figures and statistics show that the AfD’s growth in Saxony-Anhalt roughly corresponds to the decline of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). Once again, we see that it is a myth that figures like Trump, Listhaug, and Le Pen primarily gain support from the proletariat. Their social base consists mainly of the disaffected and conservative petty bourgeoisie, who feel the effects of imperialism’s decline on their wallets.

As for the description of these Parties as “fascists,” this is based on a bourgeois conception of fascism, not a Marxist analysis. It is undoubtedly true that the AfD and similar Parties attract Nazis and racists. But if we understand fascism as the abolition of bourgeois parliamentarism, as a more sophisticated form of terror against the revolutionary movement, and as a “last resort” for finance capital, we will see that the threat of fascism does not come “from outside” the established bourgeois order, but from within.

Historically, fascism emerged in Italy and Germany as a mobilization of war veterans, the lumpenproletariat, and the petit bourgeoisie against the labor movement and communism. Fascism was financed by the financial oligarchs and replaced parliament with a corporative order. It abolished democratic freedoms and rights (freedom of assembly, freedom of association) and launched a large-scale military buildup for imperialist wars of conquest. There are tendencies in this direction in all of today’s bourgeois States, regardless of the color of the government.

The established Parties in Germany have talked about banning the AfD by labeling them “unconstitutional.” Other Parties have been banned in Germany in the past, notably the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which was banned on August 17, 1956—long after Hitler’s downfall.

We categorically reject the notion that banning a Party can prevent fascism. Fascism is a political movement with very specific tasks for the imperialist bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie does not depend on the AfD or other openly racist Parties to undermine bourgeois parliamentarism or bourgeois-liberal freedoms and rights. Ultimately, all the bourgeois Parties stand ready to take on these tasks.

Instead, we must understand the factional struggle among the bourgeois Parties as an intensification of the crisis of imperialism. The way forward for German imperialism is no longer a matter of “wir schaffen das” (“we can do it,” a slogan from the CDU’s Angela Merkel). This medium-sized imperialist power faces deep-seated problems that are sharpening the contradictions throughout society, including within the bourgeoisie itself. This is happening in all imperialist countries, most of all in the superpower USA.

The bourgeoisie faces the problem of an intensifying class struggle and the masses turning their backs on elections. From this perspective, Parties like the AfD and various “left-wing populists” serve to breathe new life into the electoral circus. Moreover, the chauvinistic rhetoric against immigrants serves to create a scapegoat that can bear the blame for crisis and decline—a blame that actually lies with the bourgeoisie itself.

Furthermore, the struggle within the bourgeoisie over how to deal with its competitors and rivals is intensifying. Should they maintain their subservient relationship with US imperialism, or should they seek closer cooperation with Russia and China, or should they attempt to rally intermediate imperialist powers into a united alliance against both the US and China—as Canada’s prime minister advocates?

Norway is a minor imperialist power and, unlike Germany, France, or the United Kingdom, cannot maneuver with the same confidence. Consequently, almost all Norwegian bourgeois Parties are broadly in agreement on the foreign policy they should pursue. Nevertheless, we see small signs of division. The Progress Party (Frp) wants a tougher line against China, which is more in line with wishes of the US. The Labor Party (Ap) and the Conservative Party (Høyre) are more oriented toward the European powers and seek EU membership. A few lone voices (such as Trond Giske in the Labor Party) advocate closer ties with China. Nevertheless, subservience to the US and the UK remains quite firmly in place.

Nevertheless, we see some of the same trends here in Norway as in Germany and Sweden. Historian, Social Democrat, and former anarchist Jonas Bals, for example, is attempting to build a “front against fascism.” Admittedly, he rarely points to political Parties in Norway—his bogeymen are primarily Putin and Trump. Nevertheless, he and people like him are working to create an “anti-fascist” alliance among supporters of the Labor Party (Ap), the Socialist Left Party (SV), and the Red Party (Rødt), and are attempting to portray NATO’s contributions to the war in Ukraine as the “Spanish Volunteers” of our time.

It is truly a bizarre form of “anti-fascism” that eagerly supports the imperialist militarization of the bourgeois States and, moreover, wants the bourgeois State to pass new laws and regulations to censor and prosecute speech…

Instead of relying on the bourgeois State, those who truly want to fight fascism must understand that fascism stems from the bourgeois State itself. Mussolini and Hitler were elected by the parliaments of Italy and Germany, respectively. They were financed by the oligarchy and appointed as heads of State with the support of other bourgeois Parties. The great mistake made by anti-fascists and revolutionaries was to place any trust whatsoever in bourgeois legality. To believe that bourgeois law and the State will defend the working class against fascism is a dangerous delusion that leaves people defenseless and can end in concentration camps.

True anti-fascism must therefore be directed against the imperialist State and against the bourgeois Parties’ attacks on bourgeois-democratic freedoms and rights. First and foremost, it must put forward the real alternative to this rotten and crisis-ridden system: a revolutionary movement that puts socialist revolution on the agenda.