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submitted 1 week ago by Confidant6198@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml

For decades, we have been in the streets in defense of the Palestinian people, and will continue to fight until the total liberation of Palestine!

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[-] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I admit I’m ignorant on the issue, and you seem to know: what are some examples of socialist organizations being the main force in stopping fascism?

The vast majority of antifascist partisans in Nazi-occupied countries were socialists. We actually organize and fight while liberals create the conditions for movements like fascism.

For example, the partisans in what became Yugoslavia took back their country through their militant organizing.

Though we should not forget the antifascist force that defeated the Nazis and gave those partisans more room to operate: The Soviet Union. While Western liberal powers were sitting back hoping for the Nazis to take out Eastern Eurooe, the USSR was rapidly developing its infrastructure and productive capacity so that could fight an existential war against the fascists.

And what about the cases of socialist fascism?

That isn't a thing. Those words don't make sense together.

Fascism was a specific development in countries, specifically Germany and Italy, that wanted to become imperial powers as a new set of post-WWI great capitalist powers had basically carved the world up into pieces for themselves to plunder and had left out both. The fascists built on the prevailing conditions in those countries.

German and Italian liberals could only offer the same degrading conditions available to imperialized countries. Instead of being the vampires getting fat off the blood of others, they were trying to navigate the country as a blood-bags.

Socialists understood this and organized against it, but this, of course, threatened capital. Socialists would organize and take over exploitative factories, neighborhoods, municipalities, and run them for and by workers. Capitalists promoted the opponents of socialists, and fascists emerged as this opposition. They began as violent gangs of nationalist thugs supported by capitalists to "protect businesses" and go after socialists. Liberals supported these fascists. So did social democrars once they gained electoral power. All of the mealy-mouthed reformers empowered fascists materially against socialists.

And that is how fascists developed, in a time of crisis for how to resolve the competing forces of imperialized liberalism and socialist organization. Their angle was to develop a hyper-nationalist program against the socialist one and (on paper) against the liberal one, to explain why the common person's (Volk) conditions were degrading without actually materially addressing the capitalist system as it actually was, but through mythologies about scapegoated minorities, betrayal, and not doing capitalism well enough or for the interests of the people. Where they did have a material analysis it was in their expansionism, they understood how the imperialist equation looked, but instead of trying to destroy imperialism they just wanted to sit at its head.

And at every step of the way, socialists fought them. They were, and are, complete enemies.

Is the only remedy a more socialist organization?

There is no liberation without organization. And organization will not produce the outcomes we need without having a correct understanding and analysis of oppression and how to combat it. Therefore, we need socialist organizing.

This does not mean it is easy.

[-] threeganzi@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write such a well written and thorough response! My ignorance shows, and I’ve definitely gained some knowledge of both the definition and history of fascism.

[-] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

Not knowing this topic I'd the norm! Schools do not teach the actual political context in these countries, it is all filtered through simplistic narratives that were crafted by anticommunist propagandists (McCarthyites, e.g.) that wanted to thread the needle of presenting Nazis as people to be opposed without giving socialists the credit for doing 80% of the opposing. And the issues related to capitalism are glossed over at all costs because, of course, those same writers (1) are big fans of capitalism while (2) not understanding it very well themselves. The most powerful tool in propaganda is emphasis. To take a topic and seemingly discuss it while neglecting inconvenient aspects and nailing the ones you care about. We are constantly bombarded with this exact form of propaganda, it has become self-sustaining. People don't even know they're doing it, the narratives have calcified.

And then, shock! They open up a history book, they read the old German papers, they see the Soviet Archives, and the realities disagree almost completely with what the Texas Board of Education approved textbook said.

Anyways, give yourself a break, none if us are immune to propaganda. Just keep that spark of humility alive and read thoroughly. I recommend reading critical materials, like media criticism and left theory and histories, as these provide very useful tools for tackling mainstream sources critically.

If you would like a (short) book recommendation, you might appreciate Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti, which actually covers the exact topic of fascists vs. socialists from a critical historical perspective.

[-] threeganzi@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago

Thanks again for the nice response and thanks for the book tip. I’ll see if I can find some time and a copy, and read it.

[-] Juice@midwest.social 2 points 6 days ago

You can find it on libgen

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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
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