AnarWiki/markdown/Fascists_are_Tools_of_the_State.md

**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 19<sup>th</sup> 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 20<sup>th</sup>

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")