Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win by Clara Zetkin

Author:Clara Zetkin [Zetkin, Clara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, History, Fascism, Non-Fiction, Anti-Fascism, Activism
ISBN: 9781608468799
Google: N964DgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B06ZZZZKCH
Goodreads: 34550470
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2017-10-01T23:00:00+00:00

Workers’ self-defense and the united front

Thus the struggle against fascism imposes on us a rich array of new tasks. Every single section of the Communist International has the duty of taking up these tasks and carrying them out in a manner corresponding to the specific conditions in their country. And we must be aware that overcoming fascism ideologically and politically is not in itself sufficient to protect the struggling proletariat from the malice and violence of this enemy.

At present the proletariat has urgent need for self-defense against fascism, and this self-protection against fascist terror must not be neglected for a single moment. At stake is the proletarians’ personal safety and very existence; at stake is the survival of their organizations. Proletarian self-defense is the need of the hour. We must not combat fascism in the way of the reformists in Italy, who beseeched them to “leave me alone, and then I’ll leave you alone.” On the contrary! Meet violence with violence. But not violence in the form of individual terror—that will surely fail. But rather violence as the power of the revolutionary organized proletarian class struggle.

We have already made a start here in Germany toward the organized self-protection of the working class against fascism by forming the factory detachments.16 These self-defense units need to be expanded and imitated in other countries as a basis for international success against fascism.

But proletarian struggle and self-defense against fascism requires a proletarian united front. Fascism does not ask if the worker in the factory has a soul painted in the white and blue colors of Bavaria; or is inspired by the black, red, and gold colors of the bourgeois republic; or by the red banner with a hammer and sickle. It does not ask whether the worker wants to restore the Wittelsbach dynasty [of Bavaria], is an enthusiastic fan of Ebert, or would prefer to see our friend Brandler as president of the German Soviet Republic. All that matters to fascism is that they encounter a class-conscious proletarian, and then they club him to the ground. That is why workers must come together for struggle without distinctions of party or trade-union affiliation.

Proletarian self-defense against fascism is one of the strongest forces driving to establish and strengthen the proletarian united front. Without the united front it is impossible for the proletariat to carry out self-defense successfully. It is therefore necessary to expand our agitation in the factories and deepen it. Our efforts must overcome above all the indifference and the lack of class consciousness and solidarity in the soul of the workers, who say, “Let the others struggle and take action; it’s not my business.” We must pound into every proletarian the conviction that it is their business. “Don’t leave me out. I must be there. Victory is in sight.”

Every single proletarian must feel like more than a mere wage slave, a plaything of the winds and storms of capitalism and of the powers that be. Proletarians must feel and understand themselves to be part

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