Preying on others (2026)

Book Review from the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Hour of the Predator: Encounters with the Autocrats and Tech Billionaires Taking Over the World. By Giuliano da Empoli. Pushkin Press £12.99. (Translated by Sam Taylor)

The author was formerly an advisor to an Italian prime minister, a role which gave him the opportunity to meet various powerful people. Here he examines the actions of dictators and technology bosses; he describes many of them as Borgians, resembling Cesare Borgia, the fifteenth–sixteenth century Italian ruler who was renowned for his scheming and plotting. He sees political life as a comedy of errors, like an Armando Iannucci show such as ‘Veep’.

The main autocrat discussed is Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. In 2017 he summoned three hundred rich and powerful men to a posh hotel in Riyadh, where they were held hostage for various periods of time and, among other things, forced to pay a total of $8bn to fund MBS’s plans, which include a massive city powered by renewable energy, and a winter sports resort and floating port. The actions of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador are also discussed, but MBS really does seem to be a bit of a special case.

Da Empoli also sees artificial intelligence as a ‘Borgian technology’, as it can produce shock and awe. It is really a kind of authoritarian intelligence, transforming data into power. AI is not subject to regulatory control and ‘is in the hands of private companies that have elevated themselves to the ranks of nation states.’ Economic elites used to rely on political elites, but the new tech bosses wage war on the old political elites, preferring disruption and chaos. So AI is a political development, not just a technological one, for instance creating massive electoral databases of voters and their likely preferences.

And this is a world of violence, with global military spending increasing by 34 per cent in the last five years. Attack is now cheaper than defence, and an ‘era of limitless violence’ may lie ahead.

The book as a whole contains some interesting observations, but does not provide much by way of conclusions.

Paul Bennett

Tyranny (2025)

From the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

Tyrants are surely not difficult to spot. A Hitler or a Stalin are, in hindsight, ludicrously obvious. Yet, in their own time, they garnered popular support, even as their excesses were becoming evident. Even with the clarity of history exposing their misdeeds, there are those who look back on them with political affection.

It is more difficult to evaluate the tyrannous potential of an individual who is in the process of emerging. Especially to those who are looking for, craving for, a leader to cure their individual and national ills.

Take the near veneration of Winston Churchill, despite his political record of disasters such as the Dardanelles campaign in the First Word War. It was, of course, his war leadership in the 1940s by which his political sins were largely, if not universally, absolved. Can he be cited for any actual acts of tyranny though? The deaths of an estimated 3 to 4 million Bengalis due to Churchill diverting food supplies makes an argument, especially in Bengal.

A strategic decision in wartime circumstances it might be argued by those more sympathetic. But tyrants usually claim their decisions are strategic, in the best interests of their people. The need to crack eggs to make omelettes.

The point though is not that this or that person is a tyrant. Such would be to identify tyranny solely with individuals. A problem solved by the expedient of choosing leaders who are not tyrants. Tyranny as a personality disorder.

However, if it’s the whole political, economic and social system that is tyrannous, then a tyrant is an individual expression, the figurehead of that tyranny. Hitler and Stalin had whole coteries around them as complicit as those individual leaders. The death of Stalin did not lead to the dismantling of the tyrannous regime in the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Stalin period was the continuation of that established by those who assumed power along with Lenin. It is arguable that the Bolsheviks, for all their communist posturing, merely adapted the previous Czarist methods to their own ends. The present Russian incumbent is a continuation barely veiled by a very dubious and threadbare ‘democratic’ cloak.

Over 2300 years ago Aristotle commented at length on the subject of tyranny, identifying its main features. Tyranny is often the manifestation of political turmoil, unstable government and a disaffected people. It reflects deep social and institutional issues caused by economic disparities and political dysfunction. People begin to look for a solution in the form of a leader who seems to embody the promise of resolution. Such an individual though will be looking to exploit these disruptive features for their own political or economic (or both) ends. Tyrants will impoverish their subjects to the point they feel they cannot resist. Aristotle was, of course, addressing individual rule in the political circumstances of his own time. It is feasible to consider his principles of tyranny in the broader context of society at large. In our time this is the continuing predominance and rule of capitalism.

Instability

Instability is a fundamental feature of a system posited on the principle of ruthless competition. The accruing of profit is the motor driving the system and this is achieved at the expense of the wealth creators, the workforce, and competitors.

To best serve capitalism’s requirements the workforce is stratified economically by a variety of remuneration levels. Economic disparity between workers creates sectional interests that divide rather than unite workers in the face of the real schism, between workers as a class and capitalists. Political dysfunction then arises when workers begin to identify with different political parties purportedly serving their particular interests, while actually administering the system on behalf of capitalism. This enables the capitalist system, in its role of tyrant, to use these disruptive features for its own economic and political ends. Capitalism’s subjects, the workers, are impoverished to the extent of being wholly dependent economically upon capitalism.

Even the seemingly well paid rarely, if ever, achieve economic security that might allow them to feel independent of capitalism. A seemingly luxurious lifestyle can quickly dissipate if the ‘generous’ salary disappears. Impoverishment is certainly more obvious to those on or near the minimum wage end of the pay spectrum. They are so insecure and drained by their circumstances they are rendered seemingly powerless to resist. Nor do they readily recognise common cause with those who are financially more comfortable, even (erroneously) called middle class. Indeed, it is this sector of the working class that becomes an object of their dissatisfaction. They feel diminished by the ‘middle class elite’, readily portrayed in the media dedicated to serving the interests of capital, as espousing ‘liberal’ or ‘lefty’ notions from their detached estates. This can manifest as mass street demonstrations against supposed ‘middle class’ shibboleths such as immigration, even socialism, as ineffective reformism is often misidentified. Would-be tyrants emerge to offer leadership that is actually misleadership.

There are actual tyrants heading brutal regimes as well as those who aspire to being tyrants with their own brutal regimes. These are often not as useful to capitalism as freer societies more compatible with free markets and flexible workforces. The democratic, or at least seemingly democratic, political model largely seems most suitable for capitalism to flourish, or deal with social unrest when flourishing periodically gives way to economic crisis. Should the democratic model become undermined by ineffective governance, with none of the established political parties able to maintain stability, then the implicit tyranny of capital can find explicit form through an insurgent political force.

The only antidote to the tyranny of capitalism, implicit or explicit, is socialism. Until workers can look beyond the immediate circumstances of their particular strata and identify themselves as a class they will remain as subjects of that tyranny. Socialism is the way workers can take real democratic possession and control of the means of life, where use and the meeting of all needs, not profit, is the motive force of society. Then the tyranny will have been truly toppled.

Dave Alton

An Alternative Reich? (2025)

Book Review from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Alt Reich. By Nafeez Ahmed. Byline Books 2024. £12.99

This is a book about the challenge to conventional liberal bourgeois democracy posed by a network of far-right populists, ‘nativists’ and neo-nazis that appear to be in the ascendancy in many parts of the world, including the United States. They locate society’s problems not in the inability of the market economy to provide for people’s physical and psychological needs, but in the inability of the established systems of political democracy to deliver ’change’ to those who appear disgruntled with it.

Ahmed is a good researcher and he traces the way in which a relatively small number of multi-billionaires have set up or founded think tanks and pressure groups that have spread these far-right viewpoints over decades: most notably organisations like the Henry Jackson Society and the Heritage Foundation. Their reach has been deep and profound – into the heart of the media, and politically into the Trump administration, the Boris Johnson and Truss governments, and others in Western Europe and beyond.

The phenomenon is undoubtedly real and it is chronicled in detail here, but like others out to make a distinctive point, he can sometimes overstate his case. In the Conclusion, he seems to recognise this himself, saying:

‘The fascism of the Alt Reich is … a contradictory amalgamation of shifting white supremacism, extreme nativism and anti-globalist nationalist corporatism, which inherently pines for deregulated private capital to be backed by an authoritarian state reliant on unitary military power merged with techno-corporate autocracy. This is hardly a coherent worldview; rather it is an evolving mishmash of contradictory and competing worldviews’ (p.379).

Indeed, and this can be seen by the way in which some of its major players (like Trump and Musk) can fall out so easily, or why Reform UK has become a by-word for political resignation in more ways than one.

That the market fails to deliver on people’s expectations of it (and seems to have been doing so increasingly over the last 20 or so years) is at the root of why this rather incoherent set of viewpoints has gained such traction . . . the popular narrative is that all governments fail to deliver and they’re fundamentally all the same. As Mark Twain said, history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes and so it’s almost a minor variation of the old anarchist slogan about the futility of elections, in that whoever you vote for the government always gets back in.

And allied to all this there are worrying undercurrents – the blaming of immigrants as a source of society’s problems in a way not seen since the 1970s, an unshakeable belief in capitalism as a system but not its obvious and inevitable consequences, and a leader-loving authoritarianism that underpins a not-so-sneaking admiration for dictatorial abominations like Putin, Orban and Modi.

So Ahmed’s book is worth reading for these reasons alone. It’s just worth bearing in mind that the fascism of which he writes is not really the fascism of the 1920s and 30s, and while the ‘Alt Reich’ book title is a clever one it is, in this respect, not entirely accurate. Another caveat is that it seems odd that a book of this nature (around 400 pages) does not have an index. Perhaps it’s just the sort of left-field, unconventional, liberal approach the alt-reich themselves would decry. But without having an obsession with tradition and procedure, it might just, actually, have been rather useful . . .

DAP

Material World: Venezuela – a year on (2025)

The Material World column from the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The article on Venezuela published in last June’s Socialist Standard referred to the upcoming presidential election there as ‘unlikely to be free and fair’ and likely, whatever the real outcome, to result in Nicolás Maduro declaring himself ‘the winner’. And that’s exactly what happened. Maduro’s opponent, Edmundo González, produced figures to show that he had won around 67 percent of the votes compared to Maduro’s 29 percent. But this did not prevent Maduro from shamelessly declaring victory though not providing any supporting data as no official results were ever published. Previously he had banned his chief opponent, María Corona Machado, from standing, blocked her proposed replacement, and then adopted various other tactics to manipulate the vote.

Repression

Maduro responded with brutal repression against the thousands who took to the streets to protest, calling it a ‘fascist outbreak’. Since then Human Rights Watch has documented widespread violence against opponents by the Venezuelan authorities and by pro-Maduro armed groups known as ‘colectivos’, including killing of protestors and bystanders, ‘disappearances’ of opposition party members, arbitrary detentions and torture and ill-treatment of detainees. Protestors are often charged with broadly defined offences such as ‘incitement to hatred’, ‘resistance to authority’, and ‘terrorism’, with possible penalties of up to 30 years. Before the election, close to 8 million people had left Venezuela, an exodus constituting one of Latin America’s largest mass population movements in history. Since then, many more have fled, including elected officials, local authority workers, polling station workers, human rights advocates and journalists, and it is being projected that 2 to 3 million more will leave in the foreseeable future. This is being driven not just by the existence of a full-blown authoritarian regime, where the last shred of popular legitimacy – properly democratic elections – has vanished, but also by dire economic conditions including reliably reported frequent power failures, lack of basic foodstuffs, and sky-high crime rates partly associated with gang warfare and drug trafficking.

The intolerance of opposition was confirmed during the period of Maduro’s official ‘self-inauguration’ in January of this year when, things having ‘gone quiet’ in the outside world and with little media attention on the country, he announced plans for constitutional changes to further consolidate his power. He declared the beginning of what would be a more entrenched phase of authoritarian rule based on a strong alliance between civilian authorities, military forces, the police and the intelligence apparatus. On the day of the inauguration itself, widespread and ultra-expensive precautions were taken to counter the possibility being mooted that the opposition could somehow carry out its declared intention to return its president-elect, González, to the country from exile in Spain and hold a parallel counter-inauguration.

USA sabotage?

Outside Venezuela, Maduro enjoys the backing of some other authoritarian states – for example Cuba and Nicaragua in the Americas, and Russia, China and Iraq beyond. The USA is Maduro’s chief opponent having put up a reward of 25 million dollars for information leading to his arrest. This gives Maduro and his supporters both inside and outside Venezuela ammunition to attribute to American actions (eg, economic sanctions and CIA sabotage activity) the decline in the country’s economy, the poor state of its health care and education systems and its inability to feed large numbers of its people. This also gives Maduro the opportunity to portray the country as a beleaguered socialist enclave oppressed by, but standing up to, a bullying capitalist power. Not that this has prevented him from cooperating with Donald Trump in agreeing to accept back into Venezuela thousands of the desperate refugees who had left for the USA and who Trump is now having deported.

Predictably, the parliamentary and local elections held in May of this year again saw Maduro declaring overwhelming victory, this time with a claimed 82.68% of the votes cast and governorships in 23 out of the country’s 24 states. On this occasion, however, it seems likely that he did have a genuine majority given that the main opposition parties boycotted the elections and urged voters to do so on the grounds that they could not be free and fair. The turnout was said to be as low as 25 percent.

Not socialist

A recent report on the deportations in the Washington Post, while correctly describing Venezuela as ‘authoritarian’ and ‘repressive’, also referred to it as ‘Marxist’ and ‘Socialist’, neither of which labels is correct. While it’s true that both these terms are much debated, they are often abused and there is absolutely no warrant in Marx for the form of state-run capitalism that exists in Venezuela to be called ‘socialism’. In fact, the system there, based as it is on the market and buying and selling, is the very antithesis of socialism, which is a world society of common ownership and democratic control. Maduro’s regime may pose as ‘socialist’, but it is no more socialist than those other state capitalist regimes such as China and Cuba that support it. Yet the fraudulent use and circulation of the term allows those on the political right of the capitalist spectrum to point to the ‘failure of socialism’ for the poverty, tyranny, population flight and legalised violence that are its salient features. At the same time left-wing supporters of the Maduro regime blame the USA for stifling a valiant ‘socialist’ experiment by starving the country of resources and fomenting discontent among its population. The essence of a socialist society is a moneyless, stateless system with free access to all goods and services and based on voluntary cooperation and economic equality. Nothing of this is even close to existing in Venezuela or any of the countries that support it.

The future?

So what is the future for Venezuela? Maduro’s regime has been described as ‘a criminal mafia gang with the trappings of governmental power’. Can he hold on to power indefinitely, despite the minority support he has among the population and an economy that continues to be run into the ground, leaving most people struggling just to survive? For now Maduro seems to have the loyalty of the military, with its high-ranking officials being generously rewarded and the support of special police units, militias and intelligence facilities backed by Cuba’s secret service. But will this patronage allow him to survive, especially in the face of what still seems to be a widely supported opposition, peaceful yet determined?

If Venezuela proves capable of moving to the kind of liberal democracy that capitalism can offer, limited as that is, then this will create an environment where genuine socialist ideas will have a better chance of being put forward, and hopefully spreading.

Howard Moss

Proper Gander: Tell A Vision In Turkmenistan (2025)

The Proper Gander column from the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In The Common Good, Noam Chomsky said that ‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum’ (p.43). Applied to television, this principle still holds widely today, perhaps more than when Chomsky was writing in 1998. Not so, though, in countries such as Turkmenistan, which has only adopted the first half of the maxim in their TV broadcasts. Whether this makes their way less ‘smart’ is presumably shown in how effective it is in engineering a limited ‘spectrum of acceptable opinion’.

Turkmenistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, was part of the Soviet Union, and when this collapsed, its government became even more autocratic. The current President, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, succeeded his father in 2022 as the head of the regime. Any opposition to the government is considered to be treason and can be punishable by life imprisonment. Concurrently, the state controls what information its subjects are given, partly to exclude any conflicting viewpoints. Most citizens have no access to the World Wide Web, and instead can only use the Turkmenet, a restricted version of the internet. There is little opportunity for independent journalists: Turkmenistan ranks among the countries with the least ‘freedom of the press’ at 174th out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index. Similarly, television broadcasts are subject to stringent controls, more than in other authoritarian regimes; the range of channels and content available in Afghanistan and Myanmar is very diverse in comparison. All eight channels broadcast in Turkmenistan are run by the state. The main channel is Altyn Asar, which shows news and reports on agriculture and technology, extolling how the country is supposedly constantly improving under the President’s rule, the ‘Golden Age’ referred to by its name. The only news programme – called Watan – broadcasts simultaneously on multiple channels, including Türkmen Owazy, dedicated to music and Ýaşlyk (‘Youth’ in English), an entertainment channel, with dramas and comedies missing from the schedules. Foreign content and influences are not allowed, although the game show Ondan Bir has taken the format of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, with the twist that the winner isn’t shown receiving a prize.

Commodities such as rugs, stationery and jewellery are displayed in reports about well-stocked market stalls or even during music performances. This isn’t as ‘product placement’ to advertise them, though; what’s being promoted is the nation as bountiful and industrious. The same motivation is behind the footage of the capital city, which presents Ashgabat as slick and brightly lit, with crisp skyscrapers, fountains, statues and arches in white and gold, streamlined streets for cars to glide along, and no litter or graffiti. Few people are seen outside unless they’re participating in dance routines or military parades, both tightly choreographed and polished. Music is especially prominent across the channels, from power ballads to jingoistic anthems to folk music, although some suspiciously looks dubbed. Particularly striking is an up-tempo song performed by women in camouflage skirts in front of weaponry.

The channels are mouthpieces of the state, intended to promote its preferred vision of the nation to the populace. The meticulously-arranged performances and pristine buildings are supposed to reflect a meticulously-arranged and pristine nation.

While the propaganda is obvious, an indicator of this is that smiles are rarely seen. Most people on the parades or in game shows or recitals, and notably their audiences too, have a flat expression. They don’t smile because they live in fear and have very little to smile about, according to Joshua Perry Parker in his video on YouTube: TV in Turkmenistan is Insane. When the state machine is as oppressive as in Turkmenistan, being an ‘appendage to the machine’ makes people behave in machine-like ways. Those in the marches or music performances look dehumanised, not just in how they run through their routines but also by their starchy uniforms. Even the traditional national dress, which is colourful and decoratively-patterned, manages to look hollow in the context of the programmes. Homogeneity is plainly presented as a virtue. Minority groups are unseen on TV and also face persecution, with gay relationships between men being illegal, for example. Workers living their lives, whether in the city or beyond, are never shown. Rural areas are only represented as backdrops to music videos or as abundant fields of wheat or cotton.

It’s hard to gauge how successful Turkmenistan’s TV output is with shaping mindsets or limiting the ‘spectrum of acceptable opinion’; its viewers don’t have the opportunity to give feedback. The content is supposed to instil a sense of pride and loyalty towards the country, whether through news reports announcing a fleet of tractors or through the frequent songs and music. The emphasis on culture demonstrates that patriotism is the preferred angle used by the state, although nationalism is also pushed through the military displays. The social conservatism exhorted by the state isn’t as directly expressed on TV, as it doesn’t feature many social situations, although the regimented people who are allowed in front of the cameras reflect the repressive norms. While the TV in Turkmenistan shows us little about the lives of those struggling there, it shows us a lot about the approach of the country’s rulers. The class divide is depressingly stark, with the President as the figurehead of a wealthy capitalist class, outnumbered by the poorer vast majority who rely on what their wages can afford. The broadcasts try to disguise this divide by only presenting what the capitalist class wants to be seen. Any indoctrination is probably less successful outside the main city of Ashgabat, where workers can see clearer that their reality doesn’t match that portrayed on screen. Also, those living in rural areas often pick up satellite channels from Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan, opening them up to other forms of propaganda.

Mike Foster

Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Global warming is not the inevitable result of “‘human nature,”’ argues economist Parrique in this blistering debut study. Instead, “‘the primary cause of ecological derailment is… capitalism,”’ more specifically “‘the frantic pursuit of growth,”’ or increased production. 

[Publishers Weekly]

When challenges combatting the majority in India, from unemployment, lack of basic amenities, threat of their houses being demolished or being actually razed to the ground and more are taken note of, each is a pointer to the hard reality –- that of bleak future for those already facing hard circumstances. In essence, these certainly are not suggestive of their being raised above their present economic status. They certainly cannot be counted among those who seem to have been raised above the index of extreme poverty. 

[Counter Punch]

The regime has systematically abandoned United Nations agencies that have questioned its rule. First came the Food and Agriculture Organization in February, after it ranked Nicaragua among the countries with the highest levels of hunger in the world… The logic is simple: the regime rejects any body that questions it, seeking to consolidate absolute control by eliminating all external oversight.

[Civicus Lens]

In a new report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the government has missed most of its key targets to tackle AMR [antimicrobial resistance]. It’s also dropped the ball on its surveillance programme, on improving environmental protection and on engaging with other countries on the subject. Instead of taking responsibility, the PAC said, the government is dialling down what it actually wants to achieve. “‘There is arguably no more haunting silhouette on the horizon for the entire world than AMR,”’ the committee’s chair, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said. “‘If left unchecked, it could rewind medical progress by a century.”’ 

[TBJ Uncovered]

Trump deported, via removals and returns, approximately 1.8 million people during his first term. By comparison, Biden oversaw approximately 2 million deportations, excluding Title 42 order expulsions. Obama, once labeled as “‘deporter in chief,”’, removed about 5.2 million over his eight years. In his current term, Trump has struggled to meet internal ICE targets…. The more Trump lashes out, the more it becomes clear he cannot control the system he claims to command.

[The Hill]

Trump’s approach is not new, and criticisms of it are not either. As labor organizer Emma Goldman wrote over a century ago, “‘The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.”’ Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are charlatans selling us a lie about people in our communities being inherently dangerous. Just like Hitler, who used similar language about “‘blood poisoning”’ to justify his atrocities. Every despot in history has had to first convince people that other humans aren’t worthy of moral consideration… And every act of solidarity proves what despots fear most: that true power is our commitment to one another, our refusal to dehumanize and discard anyone in our community.

[Common Dreams]

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

The Reaction in Europe and the S.P.G.B. (1934)

From the July 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Observers of political events since 1918 cannot fail to have noticed the change that has come over the general tone and attitude of the various so- called “left” elements among the workers. For the first few years after the war these elements were jubilantly proclaiming the imminence of the end of the present social order upon the strength of a few beggarly political and other reforms on the Continent. Because sections of the ruling-class lost their grip of things in the defeated countries (giving way to others who were prepared to provide safety-valves for working class discontent and place certain belated limits on their exploitation) we were asked to believe that our masters were at the end of their tether and would be surrendering the earth in a few short years.

Now we are asked to believe a very different story by these self-same elements. In their eyes now there are no limits to the powers of the master-class to impose what is commonly termed Fascism and to interfere with the general development of the working-class. Why? Because, forsooth, these reforms are being filched from the workers within a few years of being won. To crown all, instead of realising the futility of reform policies, these elements proclaim ever more loudly the need for still bigger and better reforms.

What is the attitude of the S.P.G.B. towards this change of front on the part of such bodies as the Communist Party and I.L.P. ? Briefly, it is to maintain unchanged our hostility to these bodies and to demonstrate that the capitalist system remains essentially unchanged, in spite of the manifold forms assumed by the different national States which uphold it.

Having had experience of partial suppression during the War, we are far from holding that it is a matter of indifference to the workers whether they are allowed political expression or not. The Socialist movement, which is the supreme expression of their needs, cannot arrive at maturity under conditions of political reaction. In Engels' phrase, the Socialist movement needs elbow-room.

Experience shows, however, that reform organisations, no matter how numerous their members and supporters may be, cannot guarantee to the workers these essential political conditions of development. So far from their being able to check reaction their inability when they become the Government to solve the economic problem, has provided reaction with its greatest political stimulus. Helpless before the economic blizzard, they are equally helpless in the face of its political reflexion.

The progress of scientific organisation under capitalism results in the weeding out of the smaller capitalists and, as a result, anti-scientific notions, such as Fascism, readily find acceptance among such groups during a period of economic depression.

Socialism alone can free the productive forces from restrictions imposed upon them by different sections of the capitalist class. In the meantime, these sections strive each to impose the amount and kind of restriction suited to its own interest. The small capitalists, faced with impending bankruptcy, strive to hamper the large-scale concerns, but neither Hitler nor Mussolini has discovered how to save these obsolete little “captains of industry." The big fish continue to swallow up the little fish.

Every national State, no matter how it may describe itself, endeavours to utilise science to the maximum degree in perfecting its instruments of aggression and defence. Hence, for this reason, if for no other, it encourages the development of large-scale industry, which alone can provide these instruments. This applies equally to Bolshevist Russia, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany—and to Britain, whether under “Labour” or "National” Governments. Large-scale industry progresses, in its turn, upon the ruins of small-scale industry.

This results in the development of the working-class, i.e., in the increase of its numbers, and in the growth of its organisation upon the industrial field. The intensity and scope of the class-struggle increase simultaneously.

The “dictators," Fascist and Bolshevist alike, attempt to repress this struggle by suppressing all political parties save one. The result is that discontented elements find their way into the one legal party, and are a constant menace to its unity. The “Dictator” preserves his authority over the different factions among his followers by avoiding going too far in any one direction. Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin and Pilsudski owe their positions to compromise just as surely as does Ramsay MacDonald, or any other Parliamentary politician.

In Britain, however, the capitalist class has long ago learned how to sink its internal struggles in critical moments, as a result of its more advanced economic development. It finds its solution, not in dictatorships, but in Coalitions or “National” Governments. The essential compromise is achieved by less violent means.

Under such conditions Fascists, so-called, are as little likely as Communists to become anything more than a thorn in the side of some larger party. Just as the Communists imported Russian jargon, but were utterly unable to bring over Russian conditions along with it, so the British Fascists will find that the novelty of teaching their political grandmothers to suck eggs will soon wear off. It is not necessary to credit Baldwin and Company with supernatural sagacity in order to anticipate that they will always be at least one move ahead of Sir Oswald Mosley.

The followers of this volatile politician may conceivably eclipse the Communists and I.L.P., but Socialists need not get excited about that. If the workers are still in the dark as to the direction to take, these latter bodies must accept a large measure of responsibility. They have induced the workers to support policies for which there was no chance of success. Disillusionment and apathy have, therefore, provided the material from which Mosley may build up a temporary alternative movement.

The S.P.G.B. is not a party of prophets, but whatever the immediate future may hold, we see no reason to deviate from the policy consistently pursued by us for thirty years. Just as we refused to be duped by Moscow, so we decline to be scared by what is happening in other Continental centres.

We realise that the master-class of this country possess means of intimidation as formidable as any that exist. We also realise that they control them through the support which they receive from the non-Socialist members of our class. By all means in our power, therefore, we strive to make Socialists.

Eric Boden

Blogger's Note:

See also the editorial, 'Reason or Violence', from this month's Socialist Standard.

Proper Gander: Being informed about informers (2025)

The Proper Gander column from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was probably a coincidence that a BBC documentary about the tyrannical Russian state was released on the same day as the government’s Defence Secretary John Healey announced increased investment to move the UK to ‘war-fighting readiness’, especially against Russia. While its timing gave the programme a propagandist tinge, it doesn’t consider how the Russian state may be a danger to those of us in the UK, but rather how it oppresses those living under its rule.

The threat of being ‘denounced’, to the extent it exists in Russia, isn’t something easy to empathise with elsewhere. Aspects of what it means to be ‘denounced’ are found in any country, as all have legislation covering what politically-motivated acts are deemed unacceptable, and anyone risks the consequences for their employment, for instance, of being publicly ‘shamed’. However, in Russia, the laws are especially strict and the state monitors dissent from its decrees closely, and so to be ‘denounced’ for transgressing them can mean particularly harsh punishments. One way which supposedly subversive activities come to the state’s attention is through informers. The two featured in the documentary Informers: Hunting The Enemy Within aren’t employed in this role, which they’ve taken on like an enthusiastically-pursued hobby. They gather up information online and in the media about would-be dissenters and often alongside targeting them directly, notify the state regulator, who may then further investigate and prosecute.

One of the informers is Valentin Botzvin, an armed forces veteran who has become ‘self-appointed guardians of Russia’s soul’, as the narration puts it. He targets those who he says ‘are forming an anti-peace system with different values’, including Alisa Gorshenina, who contributed to the design for a video by activist band Pussy Riot. The other snout featured in the programme – Anna Korobkova – is more prolific, claiming to have written 1,000 denouncements. One victim was Alexandra Arkhipova, a social anthropologist at a Russian university. In 2022, Anna sent Alexandra’s employers a letter about her ‘immoral act’ discrediting the military through her academic work, and some of her friends and colleagues were also similarly accused. Alexandra fled to France and began investigating Anna’s real identity, such as by looking for patterns in their style of writing and comparing them with other texts. The camera used for photos on Anna’s Wikipedia entry was tracked to a man called Ivan Abaturov. Alexandra found a written denouncement signed by Ivan which resembled one sent by Anna, and both were traced back to one computer IP address. When challenged, Ivan replied denying he was Anna, in the same writing style. He is described as having been a troublemaker while at university and as himself has posted on social media talking about denouncements.

While revealing ‘Anna”s true identity gives the documentary a narrative and an air of espionage, Valentin the veteran is quite open about informing. As a member of Russia’s military, he had already developed a loyalty to the state, which no doubt gave him the drive to snitch in his retirement. That there are younger people, such as Ivan, who are as keen to denounce others shows how this creed has permeated out. While they may sincerely believe that what they are doing is morally right, this is because they have adopted a belief system which just so happens to align with that of the ruling elite, even if it is against their class interests.

The mindset of those who are at risk of being informed upon is different. As Alisa explains, the threat of retribution for expressing nonconformist views makes her fearful and paranoid. Alexandra felt she had to leave Russia, as did Noize MC, a rapper who was being monitored for his ‘sharp, socially conscious lyrics’, with some of his gigs being cancelled by officials. Alisa chose to remain in Russia, saying that to leave would be to have something else taken away from her, along with her rights. A caption at the end of the programme says that she was arrested, detained and found guilty of displaying an ‘extremist’ rainbow emoji and insulting the army, for which she was fined. We’re also told that by the end of 2024, almost 3,000 critics of the war against Ukraine were being prosecuted, while almost 300,000 denunciations were registered with the state regulator in the first year of the conflict.

When a state criminalises disagreement with its ideology, this shows a weakness in any arguments for it. But this weakness is eclipsed by the strength wielded by the state through its legislation and punishments. These are applied randomly in Russia, as Alexandra explains, in that one person may avoid any sanctions for writing a provocative social media post, while others may get prosecuted just for clicking ‘like’ on one. This may be due to gaps in the resources available to the state, but as Alexandra says, this inconsistency contributes to the threat. For those who question the way they have to live, anxiety about being denounced adds pressure to self-censor. Music acts such as Pussy Riot and Noize MC bravely attempt to express some anti-state sentiment, which represents a little optimism. Unfortunately, at the moment, state oppression and limited class consciousness would make any movement for genuine change in Russia difficult to establish.

According to its iPlayer page, the BBC Eye strand offers ‘high-impact investigations and in-depth reporting from our award-winning World Service team’. With a running time of only 22 minutes, there’s a limit to how in-depth Informers: Hunting The Enemy Within could be. So the documentary doesn’t consider the context much beyond saying that denouncers threaten to ‘bring back ghosts from Russia’s past’, particularly during Stalin’s rule. Throughout the decades between then and now, the state has remained, and even when it has been less autocratic it has still enforced and engendered acceptance to maintain itself. These ‘ghosts’ may now be more active, but they’ve always haunted those living under the regime.

Mike Foster

Russia and Democracy (1946)

From the June 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 23rd, under the title “True Democracy,” the Manchester Guardian opened a discussion on democracy when reviewing a recently published lecture by Professor E. H. Carr. This review was followed by contributors from Lord Lindsay, Mr. Laski and Mr. Bertrand Russell on April 20th and May 4th respectively.

The striking thing about all the contributions was that they distinguished an entirely different outlook on democracy between Russia and the Western Countries, but, to all of them, the Russian outlook is accepted as a sincere one, tied up with the view that the Russian rulers are acting on behalf of one section of society alone, the workers, and that their dictatorship signifies the rule of the workers. This, the writers agree, explains the difference between “Proletarian Democracy” and “Bourgeois Democracy.” This, for instance, is the reviewer puts it:-

“It is important, as Professor Carr points out, to realize that the Russians are just as sincere in their use of the word democracy as we and the Americans are in ours.”

We have not the space to examine the many misleading ideas that are foisted upon the Marxian point of view by these writers, but must confine ourselves to the alleged basic difference between the Russian and the Western definition of democracy.

Cutting away all trimmings, democracy simply means a state of affairs in which the will of the majority of a group, a nation, or an international society, shall always prevail. The will of the majority cannot prevail unless circumstances exist which make it possible to know at any time what the will of the majority really is and whether, for any reason, it has changed. This cannot be known unless there is at least freedom of discussion and means existing for this purpose; freedom of equality of voting; freedom to select those who are to carry out the will of the majority; and equality of electoral conditions.

Although in theory these four fundamental conditions exist in the Western democratic states, in fact there are considerable limitations. One needs only to remember the private and business votes processed by some, the enormous influence of a press owned by a propertied minority, the economic penalties suffered by the workers who express their opinion too freely; and the governments who coalesce instead of dissolving. In spite of the limitations, however, there is sufficient democracy in most of the European states and in America to enable the majority of the people to change the basis of society if, and when, they wish to do so. The point is to get them to wish it. It is therefore to the interest of the workers, who form the great majority in the nations, to use these democratic avenues and not to ignore or destroy them.

The Russian Government was, and is, fundamentally undemocratic, and under its inspiration Communist parties of the other countries have worked to discredit democratic institutions. Sometimes the plea has been that these democratic institutions were barrier to the taking over of power by the working class. In fact, however, they were simply the barrier to the taking over of power by the tiny minority, the Communist Party. The workers did not want to take over power because they had not sufficient confidence in themselves and would not know what to do with power if they got it.

At the time of the Russian Revolution the Bolshevik or Communist Party was a small minority in a largely peasant country. By taking advantage of the favourable circumstances and by carefully planned manoeuvres they succeeded in getting control of government power; every action since that date has had behind it the aim of strengthening the hold on power of the leaders of the Communist Party. Some statements of Marx and Engels on the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” were misused to support the false claim that the workers were in control in Russia. In fact the Russian dictatorship is at present the rule of a small group, with Stalin at their head, who have so tightly organised their autocracy that it is difficult to dislodge them. In this, certain peculiar circumstances have played directly into their hands. From the beginning there was a bitter struggle between members of the ruling clique, and the successful ones imprisoned, deported or executed their rivals. The secret police, as in Germany and Italy, was, and still is, one of the principal of props of power. Lately the church is also taking a hand in the game.

With such background, to write of the Russian idea of democracy as being a sincere one is just nonsense. The rulers of Russia are solely interested in keeping their privileged position as rulers and, like the capitalist rulers here, are only concerned with democracy to the extent that it achieves this object. To write of the Russian dictatorship, as the contributors to the Manchester Guardian have done, as being a dictatorship exercised in the interests of the workers is contrary to the facts. On similar grounds they could as logically argue that Capitalists rule in the interests of the worker.

The business of the Communist parties of different countries has been to serve the interests of the Russian Government, and their “day-to-day” policies have twisted and turned and been reversed merrily in tune with the needs of Russia. On this question of democracy, so far as it concerns the parliament, their somersaults have been particularly spectacular. Starting twenty-five years ago with fierce denunciation of parliament as a sham and a snare, they have alternately denounced and applauded participation in parliamentary action. We will extricate two examples of this lunatic policy:-

In 1932 the Communist Party published a 20-page pamphlet entitled “Report on the Crisis Policy of the Labour Party, the T.U.C. General Council and I.L.P.” This report was submitted to the twelfth Congress of the Communist Party. It repudiates parliamentary democracy in the following manner:-

“Revolution for the Communists means the forceful overthrow of the capitalist and the establishment of the workers’ dictatorship, this to be achieved by the organisation of the daily struggle of the workers as the road to the seizure of power” (p. 17).

Any Party which accepts parliamentary democracy, however revolutionary its phrases is an instrument of the capitalists” (p. 20).

“We must expose the sham of parliamentary democracy, and show the positive results of the workers’ dictatorship based upon the workers’ councils. …” (p. 20).

The Daily Worker of March 6th, 1943, tells an opposite story. It opened its columns to a discussion of the oft-recurring enigma “Communist Affiliation to the Labour Party.” Mr. James Walker put the case of the Labour Party and Mr. William Gallacher replied for the Communist Party. In his reply Mr. Gallacher made the following bland statement:-

“Of course we believe in parliamentary democracy. That is why I am in Parliament. That is why I am such a regular attender, and why the Party is so anxious that I should a good account of myself.”

Could blatant impudence and political perfidy go further? It might, but not very much!

In the West the capitalists find that they can rule under democracy. In Russia the Bolsheviks found they could not do so. To veil their dictatorship and obtain support at home and abroad they rigorously applied the censorship and produced quantities of literature urging the claim that the workers are the real rulers who endow their leaders with supreme power and authority on the ground that the leaders know better than they do themselves what is best to be done. This autocracy was then labelled as a new form of democracy, proletarian democracy, though the proletarians have, at the most, only the influence of the dumb, obstinate cattle who may stray this way and that along the road but are always driven home in the end. In social systems based on chattel slavery the slave either acquiesced in his slavery or went under. In Russia the position of the worker is fundamentally similar. No one before has had the brass to suggest that the slaves participated in democracy. It has been left to the twentieth-century dictatorships, with the unbounded cheek of the confidence man, to foist his fantastic view upon an apprehensive and credulous world.

With an extraordinary tenderness towards Russia the contributors to the Manchester Guardian discussion find a basis for Russian views in an idea that has been revived again. Russia, they urge, has not political democracy, but it has economic democracy. This is how Mr. Laski puts the idea:-

“Soviet Russia is a more democratic society than Great Britain. No special privilege attaches either to birth or to wealth, to race or to creed. There is a wider and more profound attempt to satisfy maximum demand than in this country. … The maddening distinction which we make between the high social prestige attached to intellectual labour and the low social prestige attached to manual labour has no meaning. … Access to the courts is not dependent upon the wealth of the parties to an action.”

Democracy is a term that is used to signify the opposite of privilege. Whatever it is called, political or economic, it either means, in the circumstances that are being considered, that everyone has an equal standing or it is meaningless. Mr. Laski is out of touch with the practical world and, consequently, his description of the economic position in Russia is a travesty of the real position.

What economic equality is there between Soviet millionaires, who can command the best food and everything else, and the average poorly paid Russian worker; between the rich, who can take their holidays in pleasant surroundings, and the poor, who must stew or freeze in the cities; between the wealthy writers and the poor manual workers; between the trembling critic of the Government and the ruling group with its ruthless instruments of oppression; between the rich, to whom all the avenues of divorce are open, and the poor, who cannot afford to pay the court procedure, between Soviet ambassadors giving sumptuous feasts and Soviet workers who can barely get enough to live on; between the prisoners in the labour camps and the Secret Police? If there is economic equality in Russia, why, and for whom, do the black markets flourish? The economic democracy that critics and servile adherents alike admire in an illusion, as the ugly facts testify.

While conditions remain such that modern society is composed of capitalists and workers, two classes with antagonistic interest, then the modern democratic state is the capitalist state, the executive committee of the ruling class, no matter what name is applied to the party in power nor what theory it masquerades under.

But the democratic state has been forced, against its will, to bring into being methods, institutions, and procedure which have left open the road to power for workers to travel upon when they know what to do and how to do it. In this country the central institution through which power is exercised is Parliament. To merely send working-class nominees there to control it is not sufficient. The purpose must be to accomplish a revolutionary reorganisation of society, a revolution, in its basis, which will put everybody on an equal footing as participants in the production, distribution and consumption of social requirements as well as in the control of society itself. So that all may participate equally, democracy is an essential condition. Free discussion, full and free access to information, means to implement the wishes of the majority which have been arrived at after free discussion, and the means to alter decisions if the wishes of the majority change.

Conditions such as these have no room to grow in Russia at present. Those who rule there to-day are essentially anti-democratic. They rule by the secret police, the concentration camp, and the executioner. They hoodwink their subjects into believing that that is the best of all possible worlds.

Gilmac.

Fascism: what does it mean? (2024)

From the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Oxford University Press blog spot has a place on its website where writers are invited to contribute opinion pieces on topics in which they are considered to have expertise. One such recent piece, The horseshoe theory in practice: how Russia and China became fascist states, by Professor Michael Kort of Boston University, US, argued that the fascism of Germany and Italy in World War 2 has been replicated since then by two other societies that called themselves communist and so saw themselves at the other end of the spectrum from fascism – Russia and China.

The arguments presented are that those governing these countries used ‘massive and brutal force to overhaul the societies they controlled’, set up highly authoritarian states headed by a dictator, encouraged ‘a belligerent racial nationalism’, and controlled ‘a capitalistic economy subject to state control known as state capitalism’. The points made here are actually similar to those to be found in a recent Socialist Standard review of a book by the historian John Foot entitled Blood and Fire, The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism. In that review, Russia and China are described as ‘the closest things that exist to the kind of system excavated and characterised so expertly by John Foot in his exploration of Italian fascism’.

Horseshoe theory

In order to try and account for the similarity between fascism and what Professor Kort variously describes as ‘socialism’, ‘communism’ or ‘Marxism’, he calls upon the so-called ‘horseshoe theory’, which ‘postulates that political similarities and differences should be viewed not as points on a straight line but rather as places on a horseshoe’. He explains that, in the common ‘linear political model’, fascism and communism (or right and left) are commonly placed at opposite ends of the spectrum, therefore appearing radically different, whereas, if political systems are seen as a horseshoe and communism and fascism are at its left and right ends respectively and curving towards each other, they can be seen to be extremely close (‘a narrow horseshoe space’) to each other rather than radically far apart. So, closely facing each other as they do, it is suggested as no surprise that they are not far apart at all in substance.

What socialism is

But is the ‘horseshoe theory’ necessary to explain the similarity which this blog writer correctly notes? Only, we would argue, if you accept his description of the kind of societies existing in Russia and China as socialism (or communism). If we look at the reality of Marx’s own concept of socialism or communism (which Professor Kort seems not to have done), we quickly see that it bears no relation to what happened in Russia under Lenin, Stalin and others, or to China under Mao, Deng Xiaoping and now Xi Jinping. It needs to be understood that, in the writings and ideas of Marx, socialism and communism were terms used synonymously to mean a marketless, moneyless society of voluntary work and free access to all goods and services based on the principle: from each according to ability, to each according to need. Since Marx’s day, these terms socialism and communism have undergone much distortion and misrepresentation, a process which began largely in the early part of the last century with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and then later in China under Mao. Both terms became equated with state ownership of all productive forces and services and repressive dictatorial state control, these arrangements being called ‘socialism’ as the supposed prelude to an alleged later stage, ‘communism’ – a distinction never made by Marx. Following this, any kind of regime leaning towards the same kind of totalitarian set-up was readily labelled socialist or communist, and since Marx was assumed to have planned all this in theory (he didn’t), any such society it was also called Marxist.

Myth and reality

This is the myth unfortunately espoused by Professor Kort. But he manages to entangle things even more. He tries to argue that what caused China in particular to become – and still to be – a fascist state (as in the title of his piece) was that it had been, wait for it, ‘communist’. Yet it is far from clear what he means by this, since at the same time he describes China as ‘a tightly controlled state capitalist economy’. He also states that the Chinese Communist Party has ‘abandoned socialism’, yet that it still practises a form of ‘Chinese Marxism’. The mind reels here, and even more so when, in a triumphant flourish, the writer concludes that ‘to communism’s (or Marxist socialism’s) horrific record of economic failure, totalitarian tyranny, and death on a genocidal scale must now be added another grim legacy: fascism’. And this even though none of the negative, ‘fascist’ features he quite accurately attributes to the regimes that have ruled Russia and China has anything whatever to do with communism, socialism or Marxism.

Clearly, despite Professor Kort’s authorship of a number of books about Russia, China, the cold war and similar subjects which the OUP blog informs us of, here at least he fails to demonstrate a clear and comprehensible view of certain key concepts necessary to understanding the history and politics of recent times.

Howard Moss

Fascism and Democracy (1939)

From the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

"A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism.” Thus Marx and Engels in the opening sentence of the world-famous “Communist Manifesto.” Ninety years later, however, it is another ; spectre that is haunting the minds of our anti-fascists: the spectre of Fascism.

In an article of this scope it is impossible to go into the social origin and content of Fascism. In the main, it is the concrete, practical differences; between the fascist and democratic forms of political administration that interest the working class. Under Fascism, the traditional forms of working class political and economic organisations are denied the right of legal existence. Freedom of speech, assembly, and the Press, is severely curtailed and made to conform to the needs of a single political party that has, for the time being, secured a monopoly in the administration of the state machine. Under Democracy, the workers are allowed to form their own political and economic organisations and within limits, freedom of speech, of assembly, and of the press is permitted as well as the possibility of the electorate choosing between contending political parties.

Now, unlike many people intoxicated with a newly-found love for democracy, the Socialist Party of Great Britain has always insisted on the democratic nature of Socialism, and on the value that the widest possible discussion of conflicting political views has for the working class. When we refuse to unite with non-socialist organisations for the purpose of defending democracy, it is most certainly not because we in any way minimise or underestimate the importance of democracy for the working class or the socialist movement. It is simply because we are convinced that democracy cannot be defended in such a manner.

And as proof of this contention, the working class has a rich experience from which to draw. The policy of the “lesser evil,” that is, a policy of concessions to, and compromise with, non-fascist parties and elements of capitalism which was pursued and justified by the Social Democratic Party of Germany on the grounds that such a policy was dictated by the necessity of defeating Hitler Fascism : the more recent experience of the same policy operated under a different name, that is, the “popular front” in France, both point to the same lesson. Namely, provided the “Fascist Menace” is real, and not the invention of hysterical and panic-stricken “intellectuals,” the formation of a bloc of non-socialist anti-fascists does not impede the advance of Fascism, but if anything, serves to expedite its progress. In order to make this point quite clear, it is necessary that we should understand the nature of democracy, and its usefulness to the working class. Democracy, in itself, cannot solve a single problem of the working class. Unemployment, poverty, insecurity, and other evil effects of capitalism remain, no matter whether the form of its political administration be democratic or dictatorial. Freedom to cry working class misery from the house-tops will not, in itself, abolish that misery. Democracy is a weapon, potentially invaluable, it is true; but like every other weapon, it can be used either for self-preservation or for self-destruction. And the painful fact is that in Germany—and the same process is going on in France to-day, and may be going on here tomorrow—the working class, lacking in an understanding of how to use the democratic weapon in its own interests, chose to commit political suicide with it instead.

The constitution of the German “Weimar” Republic—already doomed before Hitler took power—was formally one of the most democratic in the world. Nevertheless, so miserable had the existence of wide masses of the German people become, that in the last free election held in Germany a majority of the electorate voted for the abolition of democracy. For in spite of the concern for democracy which is expressed by the Communists nowadays, at the time of that election both National Socialists and German Communists were united in their hatred of what they called “bourgeois democracy.” For the Communists to assert at this time of the day that the downfall of German democracy was due to the refusal of the German Social Democrats to form a united front is nothing less than sheer effrontery; they wouldn’t have touched the then “social fascists” (as they described the Social-Democrats) with a barge pole. The chief difference between the followers of the Communists and Nazis was that they chose different vehicles through which to express their hatred of democracy. Lacking an understanding of their social position, disgusted by the antics and ineptitudes of self-styled socialists, the mass of the German people found the source of the grievances not in the capitalist nature of the social system, but in the democratic form in which it was administered. Hence, in their uninformed despair, they fell an easy prey to astute and unscrupulous demagogues, who never failed to reinforce the belief that democracy was the cause of social distress.

Fascism does not exist in the blue of the heavens like every other social phenomenon, it is related to, and has its origin in, a social background. And that background is the very democratic capitalism that “popular-fronters” and other exponents of working class compromise with capitalism, would have us defend. That capitalism inevitably gives rise to working class problems has already been mentioned; but with equal inevitability it also gives rise to problems of a specifically capitalist nature, such as maintaining the profitability of production; securing new, and retaining old markets; the necessity of forging “national unity” when faced with war with rival capitalist groups, etc. And it is precisely in an attempt to solve these problems that the ruling class has recourse to Fascism. That these problems can be permanently solved is precluded by the nature of the capitalist system itself; but that will not prevent the capitalists from making the attempt. Fascism, then, is a political form best adapted to meet the needs of certain contemporary capitalist states.

As long as the working class supports capitalism and capitalist policies, it will, in the long run, ultimately give its support to that policy best calculated to meet the political and economic needs of capitalism—even though that policy may be fascist.

Democracy for the working class can only be consolidated and extended to the extent that the working class adopts a socialist standpoint. To renounce Socialism so that democracy may be defended, means ultimately the renunciation of both Socialism and democracy. It cannot be emphasised too much, that the struggle for democracy is bound up with the struggle for Socialism, and not the struggle for Socialism bound up with the struggle for democracy.

Arthur Mertons

Fascism as ideology (2024)

From the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most of us, sooner or later, want the chaos, suffering and euphoria of existence to have some meaning. Many find meaning in relationships, family and, if they are very lucky, in their work. Others look to political/religious ideologies for answers. There is no shortage of choice in the modern world. Unlike former generations we are not only conditioned by our local experiences but we can turn to a cornucopia of ideologies courtesy of the media and internet.

It would seem that we have an almost infinite variety to choose from but, as with all forms of consumerism, this can prove to be an illusion. With the decline of religious ideologies in the technologically advanced West we see the dominance of a single political perspective that places all ideologies within a spectrum of left and right forms of capitalism. Because of historical developments we see that bourgeois representative democracies place themselves in the ‘centre’ of this spectrum. They look out upon the spread from this ‘core’ as deviations and the further away from this imagined centre the more the convenient and, in this context, descriptive word of ‘extremist’ is used. Even the Greens and environmentalist groups, after some resistance, have been placed on the left of this spectrum since they have no answers other than the tired impotent call for the reform of capitalism. Only socialists stand outside of this rigid ideologically prescriptive domination and refuse to acknowledge its political relevance.

We won’t go into the historical reasons why this universal ideology of left and right evolved but its continued dominance is plainly due to those who own the means of production, in this context primarily the media, who cannot or will not conceive of an alternative to capitalism; as Marx has said the dominant ideology is always that of the dominant class.

In the last century two ideologies came to dominate the political landscape of Europe – ‘Fascism’ and Soviet-style ‘Communism’. They were both conceived of as alternatives to ‘normal’ or ‘bourgeois’ capitalism. Any meaningful analysis of either of these types of regime reveals that they had a lot more in common with each other and with the conventional capitalism within which they evolved than they would care to admit. Both were militaristic, authoritarian, xenophobic and, most importantly, both condemned the majority to the same meaningless wage slavery and the relentless creation of surplus value to finance the lifestyles of their elites. We have explained the reasons for the failed experiment by the Bolsheviks to turn Marxian analysis into an ideology on these pages many times and it may be appropriate to label their state capitalism, among many other criticisms, as anachronistic – especially in a European context. Can we say the same of fascism?

In some respects, ideologies are impervious to the accusation of being anachronistic; all religions tend to have their roots in the distant past but this does not affect their popularity and cultural durability. We might point optimistically to the demise of religion in the western cultures but millions across the globe still adhere to values and laws prescribed by imaginary deities and their priests. Given the undoubted crimes committed by those calling themselves fascist their ideology has been elevated to the highest ranks of historical infamy. That it is merely a form of capitalism that developed in a specific cultural context does not affect its continual attraction for the dispossessed, fearful, uneducated and those desperate to believe that they and their cultural identity are superior to that of all others. The weak are always tempted to identify with the strong so that their own frailty and fear is diluted.

Is it possible to conceive of the world without the use of an ideological lens? Socialists believe that we can at least negate some of the conditioning that we are all subjected to through a study of history. It would seem that all ideologies are generated by and serve certain groups (classes) and that the actual content of them is of little importance compared with the political control that they enable.

It would be impossible to seriously maintain that the conflicts in England during the revolution of the 1640s had anything remotely to do with the preachings of an obscure rabbi 1600 years earlier in Judea. What promoted Puritanism were the political needs of the rising class of capitalists. This historical ‘class struggle’, so socialists believe, underlies all ideological belief.

We embrace this struggle for what it is and have no interest in lecturing people about the moral strengths and weaknesses of comparing left and right or the possibility of repairing capitalism through the application of one ideology or another. The inhuman outrages committed in the name of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are the results of ideological detritus used by the oligarchs of Israel and Palestine to justify their greed, fear and hatred. This visceral hatred of the working class for their counterparts in another culture is the lifeblood of ‘fascism’. One of the excuses used for the Russian oligarchs’ invasion of Ukraine was that it was a hotbed of Nazi fascists – forgetting the vicious brand of rabid nationalism in their own homeland.

Fascism and its left-wing counterpart will always find fertile ground to grow within the corrupt and rotting capitalist culture. No amount of wishful thinking that we have ‘moved on’ and that such ideologies are anachronistic will put these genies back in their respective bottles. They cannot be countered by mere moral or rational argument but only by class consciousness that understands their historical origins and the political elites that they served.

There are some who believe that this too constitutes just another ideological perspective but even if this were true then at least it serves the needs of a class composed of the vast majority of the human species. Socialism can never be imposed by any elite and so the resolution of the class struggle can only be achieved through the understanding by the majority of what they have to do to counter the need for ideologies and the political ignorance and historical anachronisms that they all represent.

Wez.

Doubts and Difficulties: Tyranny under Socialism. (1905)

The Doubts and Difficulties column from the October 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

I am certain, Comrade Editor, that “Cussedness” reigns universal in the human heart. No sooner have I got rid of one difficulty than I stand confronted with another. I answer a question in a manner at once brief, complete, and lucid and lo ! a fresh questioner comes smilingly forward with “Yes, that is all right but arising from that answer how?” Yea, verily, the answering the doubts and difficulties of men is indeed a veritable labour of sisyphus !

o o o

The aforegoing remarks are torn from my agonised soul by the following letter which I have just now received—Dear Econonicus, in your monthly grunt against things that are I see that you write against authority as exercised by experts. Apart from the fact that our ultimate appeal must ever be to the expert, and that the worker displays as much class bias as does the capitalist, is it not the case that any Socialist society must be more strongly under the control of authority—whether of the demagogue or of the pedagogue—that the rights of the minority will be denied them, and that, in a word, Socialism will be a gigantic slavery,

o o o

My correspondent in a short space covers a very wide field. The principles of scientific evidence; the psychology of class bias; the rights of the minority ; and the organisation existing within a Socialist community: these are the matters that engage his attention.

o o o

My correspondent who, by-the-bye, signs himself “Anti-Rant,” must bear with me if I dwell but lightly upon the three foremost of those topics in order that I may examine into the validity of his last statement. Last month I stated my opinion that the authority of the expert was a fallible one and that our ultimate appeal must be to the collective experience of mankind, whether this experience is found in written records, in personal experience, or in those ideas—commonly termed innate—which are the transmitted experience of his progenitors. From this opinion I can see no present reason to depart.

o o o

We shall endeavour with the courtesy of the Editor to deal with the question of class-bias on a future occasion and the question of the rights of minorities is bound up in no small degree with the subject of tyranny.

o o o

This charge of tyranny has often been levelled against the Socialist. Germinating in the mind of some worthy member of The Liberty and Property Defence League it has found an echo in the arguments of those always ready to give utterance to such cries. When we say that property is in its very essence a means of oppression, that it can only continue to exist in its present capitalistic form by virtue of its power of forcing men to work through the hunger of themselves, their wives, and their children, we meet with the retort that under Socialism tyranny will be yet more rampant and that man will then have every detail of his life arranged for him by the State.

o o o

To us this appears as a complete misunderstanding of the most rudimentary principles of Socialism. It is based upon the idea that the transformation of Society from Capitalism to Socialism is to be cataclysmic, instantaneous, and complete. On the contrary we Socialists contend that Socialism must pass through various phases before it reaches the final stage idealised by the Socialist. No matter how sudden may be the downfall of capitalism it will take some little time for Society to be new-builded with beautiful homes and beautiful lives for all mankind.

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Another misconception is the idea that Society under Socialism is to be governed by a bureaucratic State. This idea while quite unwarranted is in some measure justified by the attempts of the Fabian Society, the I.L.P., and other kindred bodies to foist upon the people of these islands a local bureaucratic collectivism.

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The main fact to be remembered in this connection is that society under Socialism is the entire community, and that while it is true that the community as a whole will not come and see that you have your house built in the orthodox way, yet the community as a whole will be the ultimate arbiter in all things relating to the welfare of its members.

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In a society based upon common ownership and control of the means requisite for producing and distributing the things necessary for human consumption, and where all things being thus held in common there are no distinctions of social position, it would be expected of everyone capable of working that he should take his fair share in the work of producing the common wealth. Should any refuse to perform this necessary work the community would have its own method—probably of denying them the right to consume the wealth produced by others—of bringing such recalcitrant persons to book,

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Outside this requirement by the community that no person should be allowed to idly enjoy the fruits of the labours of others it is unlikely that there would be any interference with the lives of men. The self-regarding actions of men would be greatly extended by minimising the amount of work necessary for the securing a subsistence.

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John Stuart Mill said “The principle is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection : that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others.”

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Under Socialism this principle will be properly observed, whereas to-day mankind is divided into two classes, one of which rules the other—the smaller capitalist class which monopolises all the advantages of our civilisation, constitutes Society, the State. By its owning the country it is enabled to enslave the other class the working class—and to tyrannise over them. Tyranny is the necessary outcome of unequal possessions and can cease only on the cessation of privately owned wealth.

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Socially owned wealth means a society of equals, of men possessing equal rights. Under such a society there will be no place for tyranny. As to-day social organisation will be the reflection of industrial organisation and the industrial organisation based upon equal wealth will be reflected by the organisation of society based upon equal social power. Under such a system of Society—

“Tyrants will flee

Like a dream’s wild imagery,”

and tyranny, after tarrying throughout the centuries of privately owned property will vanish from the world of the future before the incoming Socialism as rapidly as difficulties are removed by the flowing pen of—

Economicus.