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Social fascism was a theory developed by the Communist International (Comintern) in the early 1930s which saw social democracy as a moderate variant of fascism.^[1]

The Comintern argued that capitalism had entered a Third Period in which proletarian revolution was imminent, but could be prevented by social democrats and other "fascist" forces.^[1]^[2]

Overview

Poster of the Portuguese MRPP of a rally on 12 October 1975 at Campo Pequeno, in Lisbon, commemorating a killed party member, whose slogan reads: "Neither Fascism, nor Social fascism. Popular Government"

At the 6th World Congress of the Comintern in 1928, the end of capitalist stability and the beginning of the "Third Period" was proclaimed. The end of capitalism, accompanied with a working class revolution, was expected and social democracy was identified as the main enemy of the communists. The Comintern's theory had roots in Grigory Zinoviev's argument that international social democracy is a wing of fascism. That view was accepted by Joseph Stalin, who described fascism and social democracy as "twin brothers", arguing that fascism depends on the active support of social democracy and that social democracy depends on the active support of fascism. After it was declared at the Sixth Congress, the theory of social fascism became accepted by many in the world communist movement.^[3]

The new direction was closely linked to the internal politics of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). After a faction fight inside that party following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, the victorious group around Stalin shifted decisively to the left by advocating the end of the mixed economy New Economic Policy and declaring an intensification of the class struggle inside the Soviet Union. An atmosphere of revolutionary fervour was created and saw any enemy of the ruling group around Stalin denounced as "wreckers" and "traitors", an attitude that was translated on to the international stage, where both social democrats and communist dissidents were denounced as fascists.^{[citation needed]}

Stalin stated in a speech in 1924:

Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy.^[4]

At the same time, under leadership of German Chancellor Hermann Müller the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) agreed with anti-communist parties that Stalinists were fascists.^[5] That led to mutual hostility between social democrats and communists, which were additionally intensified in 1929 when Berlin's police, then under control of the SPD government, shot down communist workers demonstrating on May Day in what became called Blutmai (Bloody May). That and the repressive legislation against the communists that followed served as further evidence to communists that social democrats were indeed "social fascists".^[6] In 1929, the KPD's paramilitary organisation, the Roter Frontkämpferbund ("Alliance of Red Front-Fighters"), was banned as extremist by the governing social democrats.^[7] A KPD resolution described the "social fascists" [social democrats] as the "main pillar of the dictatorship of Capital".^[8] In 1930, Kurt Schumacher of the SPD accused Communists of being "red-lacquered doppelgangers of the Nazis".^[9] In Prussia, the largest state of Germany, the KPD united with the Nazis in unsuccessful attempt to bring down the state government of SPD by means of a Landtag referendum.^[10]

After Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the KPD was outlawed and thousands of its members were arrested, including Thälmann. Those events made the Comintern do a complete turn on the question of alliance with social democrats and the theory of social fascism was abandoned. At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, Georgi Dimitrov outlined the new policy of the popular front in his address "For the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism".^[11] This popular front dissolved with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.^[12]^[13] The American historian Theodore Draper argued that "the so-called theory of social fascism and the practice based on it constituted one of the chief factors contributing to the victory of German fascism in January 1933".^[14]^[15]

Criticism of the theory

By Trotsky

Leon Trotsky argued against the accusations of "social fascism". In the March 1932 Bulletin of the Opposition, he declared: "Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. [...] And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory". However, Trotsky also wrote in the same essay that any co-operation with the social democrats was only tactical and temporary and that in the final analysis social democracy would have to be defeated and subverted by the revolutionary faction:

The front must now be directed against fascism. And this common front of direct struggle against fascism, embracing the entire proletariat, must be utilized in the struggle against the Social Democracy, directed as a flank attack, but no less effective for all that. [...] No common platform with the Social Democracy, or with the leaders of the German trade unions, no common publications, banners, placards! March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike! Such an agreement can be concluded even with the devil himself. [...] No retraction of our criticism of the Social Democracy. No forgetting of all that has been. The whole historical reckoning, including the reckoning for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, will be presented at the proper time, just as the Russian Bolsheviks finally presented a general reckoning to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries for the baiting, calumny, imprisonment and murder of workers, soldiers, and peasants.^[16]

Other historical criticism

In part of The Open Society And Its Enemies (1945), philosopher Karl Popper criticized what he saw as Communist inaction during the rise of fascism, stating that "there was never a 'communist danger' to the fascist conquest of power". Popper argued that some radical parties of the era welcomed or turned a blind eye to the weakening of democracy, or saw a dictatorship as a temporary stepping stone to a revolution.^[17]^[18]

According to this assertion, not much could be lost and something would be gained if that hidden dictatorship became an open one, apparent to all; for this could only bring the revolution nearer. [Communists] even hoped that a totalitarian dictatorship in Central Europe would speed up matters [...] Accordingly, the Communists did not fight when the fascists seized power. (Nobody expected the Social Democrats to fight). For the Communists were sure that the proletarian revolution was overdue and that the fascist interlude, necessary for its speeding up, could not last longer than a few months.

In 1969, the ex-communist historian Theodore Draper argued that the Communists who proposed the theory of social fascism, "were chiefly concerned with drawing a line of blood between themselves and all others to the 'right' of them, including the most 'left-wing' of the Social-Democrats."^[14]

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b Haro, Lea (2011). "Entering a Theoretical Void: The Theory of Social Fascism and Stalinism in the German Communist Party". Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory. 39 (4): 563–582. doi:10.1080/03017605.2011.621248. S2CID 146848013.
^ Hoppe, Bert (2011). In Stalins Gefolgschaft: Moskau und die KPD 1928–1933 (in German). Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN 9783486711738.
^ Hildebrand, Klaus (1984). The Third Reich. Routledge. p. 106. ISBN 0-415-07861-X.
^ "Concerning the International Situation". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2022-02-04.
^ von Saldern, Adelheid (2002). The Challenge of Modernity: German Social and Cultural Studies, 1890-1960. University of Michigan Press. p. 78. ISBN 0-472-10986-3.
^ Kitchen, Martin (2006). A History Of Modern Germany 1800-2000. Blackwell Publishing. p. 245. ISBN 1-4051-0040-0.
^ Schuster, Kurt G. P. (1975). Der rote Frontkämpferbund 1924–1929 [The Red Front Fighter League 1924–1929] (in German). Droste, Düsseldorf. ISBN 3-7700-5083-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Braunthal, Julius (1963). Geschichte der Internationale: 1914–1943 [History of the International: 1914–1943] (in German). Vol. 2. Dietz. p. 414.
^ Schmeitzner, Mike (2007). Totalitarismuskritik von links: deutsche Diskurse im 20. Jahrhundert [Criticism of totalitarianism from the left: German discourses in the 20th century] (in German). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 255. ISBN 978-3-525-36910-4. OCLC 169002787.
^ Sewell, Rob (1988). "Chapter 7". Germany: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution. Fortress Books. ISBN 1-870958-04-7.
^ Dimitrov, Georgi (1972) [13 August 1935]. "For the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism". Georgi Dimitrov: Selected Works. Vol. 2. Sofia: Sofia Press. pp. 86–119.
^ Graham, Helen; Preston, Paul (1988-12-05). The Popular Front in Europe. Springer. ISBN 978-1-349-10618-9.
^ Daskalov, Roumen (2011-05-10). Debating the Past: Modern Bulgarian Historiography—From Stambolov to Zhivkov. Central European University Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-615-5053-53-5.
^ ^a ^b Draper, Theodore (February 1969). "The Ghost of Social-Fascism". Commentary: 29–42.
^ Winner, David (3 October 2018). "How the left enabled fascism". New Statesman.
^ Trotsky, Leon (March 1932). "For a Workers' United Front Against Fascism". Bulletine of the Opposition. No. 27.
^ Popper, Karl (2005-07-26). "19. The Revolution. VI". The Open Society and Its Enemies: Hegel and Marx. Routledge. pp. 178–181. ISBN 978-1-135-55256-5.
^ Hacohen, Malachi H. (1998). "Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle, and Red Vienna". Journal of the History of Ideas. 59 (4): 730. doi:10.2307/3653940. ISSN 0022-5037. JSTOR 3653940.