**Fascists are Tools of the State** is a 2007 article by [Peter
Gelderloos](Peter_Gelderloos "wikilink") that points out the flaws in
[fascist](Fascism "wikilink") ideology, the danger in fascism, the
support of fascism by [capitalists](Capitalism "wikilink") and the need
for an [anti-authoritarian,
anti-capitalist](Libertarian_Socialism "wikilink") and
[anti-fascist](Anti-Fascism "wikilink") movement.
## Transcript
1. Fascism is widespread in many industrial and postcolonial countries,
existing as extreme nationalism, neo-Nazism, or some other extreme
authoritarianism. In nearly all cases, the rank-and-file of the
fascist movements tend to be dispossessed members of a privileged
group in society (e.g. poor whites). In pre-WWII Germany, most
working-class Germans were impoverished by the
[Depression](Great_Depression "wikilink"), in contrast to their
self-image as a wealthy, powerful nation. In modern Germany,
neo-Nazi political parties win the most votes, often more than 10%
of the total, in states where unemployment is highest. In the US,
poor southern whites who do not enjoy the wealth promised to white
people of the richest nation on earth often join the [Ku Klux
Klan](Ku_Klux_Klan "wikilink"). In Rwanda the Hutus, impoverished
and in great need of land, expressed their desire for more wealth
and power by identifying with the majority ethnicity, joining the
fascist Hutu parties responsible for the genocide. There has been a
similar fascist movement among Hindus in India, asserting their
power as the majority ethnicity. Thus, fascism can be seen as a
response to disempowerment and broken promises of privilege.
2. Fascism can also be seen as an elite phenomenon, a gentleman’s
movement. The German Nazi party included many of the richest
industrialists, the Spanish fascists behind Franco were an alliance
of generals, landowning aristocracy, and church leaders, while
Mussolini said fascism should better be called “corporatism” because
it is the blending of state and corporate power. In the US, the KKK
was originally a gentleman’s club, and before WWII, the richest
industrialists (Hearst, Rockefeller, Ford, DuPont, Morgan) supported
the fascists in Europe. Currently in the US, many elite
conservatives support the anti-immigrant group Minutemen and other
crypto-fascist groups. Fascism is especially connected to
conservative segments of the elite who are afraid the expansive
strategies of the progressive elite will backfire and destabilize
the whole system. In these manifestations, fascism is a way the
elite preserve traditional morality, strengthen social hierarchy,
and defend against revolutionary activity among the lower classes.
3. The basic ideas common to fascism (a: anti-immigration, b: racial
purity, c: white supremacy, d: political empowerment through
nationalism, e: the social Darwinist ideas of “survival of the
fittest,” f: anti-Semitism) are all empty and incorrect. A:
Anti-immigration is hypocrisy. The anti-immigration political
parties in the US and [European Union](European_Union "wikilink")
usually supported the same free trade deals and wars (e.g. NAFTA,
the [civil war in El Salvador](Salvadoran_Civil_War "wikilink"))
that are the cause of much of the immigration, and their economies
depend on immigrant labor (US agriculture and the construction
industry would collapse overnight without immigrant labor). European
governments that are supposedly worried about protecting their
cultures from immigrants are often the same ones that colonized the
countries from which the immigrants are coming; they had no problem
bringing their culture to someone else’s country, nor are they doing
anything to stop the “cultural pollution” of McDonalds and MTV. B:
As for racial purity, the idea has no scientific basis, and in fact
race is an arbitrary generalization. There is no danger in
cross-racial breeding, in fact a diverse gene pool is much healthier
than a homogenous one, and no ethnic group is actually “pure.” We
all in fact stem from the same ancestors and have been mixing since
the beginning. C: White supremacy is also a lie with no factual
basis other than the crude (and fabricated) pseudo-science of
skull-measuring that took place in the 19th century. D:
Nationalism is a blatant lie: the political and economic elite are
constantly making deals with other countries and enriching
themselves while they teach their blind followers to hate people
from other countries, thus dividing the lower classes. Waving the
flag and loving the nation empowers the government, and this is the
opposite of empowering the people. Ridiculously, nationalists
believe they will be free if their jailers look the same and speak
the same language as them. E: Social Darwinism — the idea of
“survival of the fittest” enshrined as a political system — has
nothing to do with scientific Darwinism. In fact, Darwin never used
the phrase “survival of the fittest,” and he found that species
survive by adapting themselves to nature, not waging a war against
it. In fact, humans waste their greatest evolutionary advantages —
the abilities to communicate and think creatively — by conforming to
strict social hierarchies that have no actual natural basis. F: As
for anti-Semitism, in the Middle Ages, the same people who killed
Jews also put them in the role of money lender and depended on them.
In the 20th
century, anti-Semitic capitalists claimed Jews were part of the
“international Bolshevik conspiracy” while anti-capitalist
anti-Semites said Jews were part of a conspiracy of bankers and
capitalists. Clearly, fascists just use Jews to stand in wherever they
need to blame someone.
1. So many fascists and neo-Nazis could not go on believing such
stupid, baseless ideas unless their hatred served an important
purpose. Clearly we cannot take fascist ideas seriously, but we must
take fascists themselves seriously, because of all the murders,
social violence, and intimidation they are responsible for. So, if
fascism is useful, we must ask: to whom is it useful? The previous
example of anti-Semitism offers a clue. Fascism provides a
scapegoat. Fascism encourages poor members of the dominant group
(e.g. poor whites or poor Christians) to hate some other group, so
that their real enemy will be safe. Poor people have good reason to
hate rich people. If Jews can stand in for rich people (as part of
some international bankers’ conspiracy), then poor people will hate
Jews, and Judaism, rather than hating rich people, and capitalism.
When this happens, the elite can smile and be at peace: they are
safe from the anger of those they exploit. The hatred of fascism
also targets oppressed groups. In US history this means blacks,
Native Americans, and latino immigrants. Poor whites must take part
in exploiting the lowest classes (in the days of slavery they often
held the whip). According to the mythology of white supremacy, all
white people are supposed to be superior (including in terms of
wealth and power). Fascism teaches poor, powerless whites to blame
and hate the blacks and immigrants (for “causing crime” or “stealing
our jobs”) instead of their true enemy, the elite. This hatred also
creates a psychological distance that makes it easier for them to
oppress people of color, and harder for them to unite. It is rich
white people, the capitalists and government elite, who become rich
from slavery, immigrant labor, and other forms of exploitation, but
it is the working-class whites who must play the role of police.
They get little material benefit, but fool themselves with
psychological benefit, by pretending they are powerful and superior
as members of some mythical white race. The rich whites can laugh
all the way to the bank that they have made so many working-class
whites into their tools so easily, and so cheaply.
2. If it is correct that the elite are the beneficiaries of fascism,
then we should be able to find evidence of elite support for
fascism. And in fact we do. Many European Union governments sponsor
the idea of “cultural purity” and protecting superior European
culture from the “pollution” of immigration, by requiring immigrants
to pass cultural tests. The corporate media (owned by the elite) in
the EU and the US cover the immigration issue in a way that is sure
to encourage ignorance and fear. For example, they rarely give the
context of why people immigrate, whose corporations and whose wars
have destroyed their homelands. They rarely mention the fact that
European or US economies would collapse without immigrant labor,
that white consumers depend on the cheap labor and cheap imports
(fruit, clothing, computers, cell phones, etc.) of the immigrants
and the countries they come from. And in the US, members of the
elite give great financial support to the more respectable fascist
groups (especially the Christian fundamentalists). George W. Bush
has even been successful (as was Reagan) in getting government money
to such groups. In countries like Italy, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia
it is also easy to find evidence of the government or church giving
ideological or material support to fascists. Clearly, the elite feed
the fears and ignorance that provide a foundation for fascism.
3. What do the elite get from fascism in return? Very much. Fascist
tools do not disappoint their elite owners. Fascists help distract
the
lower-classes by blaming the problems of the elite (poverty,
disempowerment, corporate globalization) on a scapegoat, such as
immigrants. The 2006 riots in Hungary provide a perfect example. People
were so upset with the horrible conditions that they took the streets,
fought off police, and occupied the state television station, yet this
was no revolution\! The crowds were dominated by fascist ideologies, so
in the face of capitalist exploitation (worsened after their government
joined the EU) they instead blamed people poorer than themselves —
immigrants, they attacked a synogogue, and they lapsed into a fantasy of
an idyllic Hungarian history, hundreds of years past, even though most
of the people directly responsible for their problems were also
Hungarians. Fascists divide the lower classes, causing them to fight one
another, and creating the hatred and distance that makes it easy for
whites and Christians to oppress and exploit people of color, Muslims,
etc. Thus, they protect the elite from revolution.
1. Some fascists (inspired by Hitler’s “national socialism”) are more
consciously anti-capitalist, or they think they are. These
extremists are also useful to the elite, even though they often hate
the governments they are the tools of. Firstly, they make any
potential anti-capitalist revolution less effective by dividing the
lower classes, and emphasizing race. Because they confuse the actual
nature of capitalism they end up supporting a national capitalism
(at most this will only involve greater government control, similar
to the “socialism” of Hitler or Lenin). Secondly, as extremists who
pretend to be revolutionary, they reserve much of their hatred for
communists, anti-fascists, and anarchists. Authoritarian communists
are just like another competing sect of fascists, and once in power
they have shown willingness to use their same methods to purge or
purify their country. Right-wing and Left-wing fascists may fight,
but in the end they can find much common ground (as we see in
Lenin’s treaty with the Austro-Germans, the Nazi-Soviet treaty,
and more recently the emergence of the fascist “National Bolsheviks”
and the support of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for
the xenophobic Movement Against Illegal Immigration). Anarchists, on
the other hand, want to abolish all political power, so they present
an uncompromising threat to the elite. It is no coincidence that
fascists are uncompromising in their assault on anarchists. Fascists
have attacked and even killed anarchists all across Europe and in
the US. In some parts of eastern Europe, anarchists can hardly
organize a fundraising concert, because of the certainty of attack
by fascists. In this way, the fascists work as a paramilitary force
for the state. In the US, the
[FBI](Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation "wikilink") (federal police)
has long infiltrated the KKK and other white supremacist groups,
using them for attacks against black radicals, such as the
[Greensboro Massacre](Greensboro_Massacre "wikilink"); in Italy
during the [“Strategy of Tension” in the
70s](Years_of_Lead_\(Italy\) "wikilink"), the intelligence services
used fascist groups for murdering Leftists, or bombing crowded areas
and blaming it on the Red Brigades; in Moscow in 2006, neo-Nazis
fought alongside the police to attack the Gay Pride parade.
2. Aside from providing this constant service, fascists are useful
tools of the state because the elite and bourgeoisie can use a
fascist revolt to save it from a true lower-class revolution. Though
fascism may topple a particular government, government is just a
tool of the elite. In Italy, after the landowners, church leaders,
and factory owners saw that they did so well under Mussolini, the
bourgeoisie everywhere realized that fascism could save them from
revolution. This realization led the elite in Spain to support
Franco’s fascist coup, to save themselves from the growing anarchist
movement.
3. Fascism is neither anti-authoritarian nor anti-capitalist, so the
capitalist elite will be protected by fascism. Even fascists who are
anti-rich and anti-globalization, who think they are anti-capitalist
“national socialists” put their nationalism first, meaning they will
be easily controlled by the capitalists of their own nationality.
They have deprived themselves of the weapon of solidarity by cutting
themselves off from the people of other nations. Nationalist
governments that have won the support of fascists uphold capitalist
inequalities and continue to facilitate globalization — the only
problem is that they distract everyone from the same old problems by
waving the flag, launching a war against a weaker country, or
blaming some minority. But the problems of poverty and
disempowerment remain. Thus, fascists who are think they are
“defending the nation” or “strengthening their people” are really
just licking the boot. They are asking to be controlled by leaders
of the same nationality, they are blindly swearing allegiance to an
elite who will indulge their petty prejudices, and they are ensuring
that their exploitation and powerlessness will continue.
4. Many fascists (particularly the neo-Nazis) base much of their
criticism of social problems on race. But it is important to
understand that in scientific terms, race does not exist. Some
people are lighter than others, some darker, but there are no clear
lines, and everybody has mixed heritage. In terms of genetics, there
is far more diversity within a single “race” than there is
difference between the averages of the various races (i.e. your
genes could easily be closer to those of someone from another race
than to someone who is the same race as you). Race is a social
invention. The concept did not exist until Europe began its colonial
phase. Once they began enslaving Africans, colonizing Asians, and
exterminating Native Americans, the European elite began speaking in
terms of race to separate themselves, and dupe lower-class Europeans
into filling the role of police and cooperating with the
exploitation of the most oppressed. In the early American colonies,
the ruling class had to quickly impose laws against whites marrying
with Africans or living with Native Americans, because on several
occasions the lower-class Europeans joined with the colonized people
in rebellion, or ran off to live with them (finding those societies
to have more freedom).
5. Capitalism and the state will always produce resentment and
rebellion. People do not like to be controlled, or exploited. The
racism and authoritarianism of the state will cause some malcontents
to blame the scapegoats and cling to fascist ideals of rebellion.
Direct propaganda by the state ensures the growth of fascism within
the populations of the dispossessed. Thus, as long as the state
exists, fascism is inevitable. Those who oppose fascism must support
anti-authoritarian revolution. (Authoritarian revolution is no
answer, because the state is a tool of domination, and even if it
can be taken out of the hands of a particular capitalist class, it
will turn those who wield it into a new, similar elite class. And
after all, the authoritarian Left revolutions brought about
governments like the USSR that were similar to the fascist states in
many ways). But if there is a strong fascist movement, revolution
becomes difficult or impossible, because of the ability of fascists
to divide the lower-classes and attack revolutionaries.
6. Therefore, people opposed to fascism must attack government and
capitalism as the causes, while treating fascism as an aggressive
and disabling symptom. Anti-fascists with no critique of capitalism
or the state are fighting a losing battle, because they confuse
cause with effect. Fascists do not come from nowhere. They are
encouraged by the state, and they draw on the anger that is produced
by capitalism. Fascism cannot be defeated by simply beating up
fascists (although in the short-term self-defense is certainly
necessary). After all, fascists often recruit from the poor
populations that might support true anti-capitalist revolution if
they could be educated to see past xenophobia and racism.
7. So, to defeat fascism we need to create an anti-capitalist movement
that is also anti-authoritarian. And such a movement needs to belong
to people of all colors and nations, capable of international
solidarity. But renouncing the national/ethnic divisions of the
fascists does not mean ignoring any such divisions that do exist in
society. It is the liberals who take the hypocritical “color blind”
approach to racism. There are not inherent differences between
people with different skin color — in this sense we are all equal.
But there are differences in our cultures and histories. It makes a
big difference if society has treated you and your ancestors like
subhumans. Systems of privilege and oppression continue to divide
us, even when we have good intentions. Often white anti-fascists
ignore these divisions and make themselves unable to work with
people of color by holding onto their privilege or being blind to
real differences in needs, histories, and consequences of action
(e.g. how harshly the police will react to different people based on
skin-color). This is one reason that “anti-fascist” movements
throughout Europe and the US are almost entirely white, effectively
excluding people of color and immigrants. Overcoming white supremacy
is just as important as overcoming capitalism, and being color-blind
to the point of just seeing economics is a way that white people
divide the movement (many people of color will not want to work with
whites who minimize the far-reaching problems of white supremacy).
White people must also find their own reasons for fighting against
the alienating, disempowering system of white supremacy. Instead of
ignoring it, seeing how it hurts and limits their own identities can
help them become better allies to people of color who are more
obviously hurt by racism. Overcoming the segregation that ironically
plagues antifascists does not mean white antifascists inviting
activist immigrants and people of color into their movement. On the
contrary, it means white anti-fascists need to understand how they
can be better allies to those who suffer fascism most directly; and
it also means they need to take responsibility for, rather than
disowning, those whites who have been misguided by racism into
becoming the fascist base, and educating them. Therefore, the
immediate steps towards building a movement capable of destroying
fascism at its source are understanding how our society feeds
fascism and learning where to obstruct this process; understanding
how privileged and oppressed people experience fascism and
resistance differently, and bringing these understandings together
in a spirit of mutual assistance; and directing the rage of people
insulted daily by exploitation and authority, away from the
scapegoats and towards the deserving targets: capitalism and the
state.
## External Links
- [Fascists are Tools of the
State](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-fascists-are-the-tools-of-the-state)
at [theanarchistlibrary.org](theanarchistlibrary.org "wikilink")