Re: [A-List] US state: ruling class split/fascism

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 10/1/02 7:28:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time, furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx writes:


> >Carrol Cox wrote:
> >
> >>But again, my central point is that incontinent use of the label
> >>"fascist" shows a naive faith in the goodness of simple capitalist
> >>democracy.
> >
> >If capitalist democracy were such a total sham, how come you're not 
> >in jail? Is it just because you're so marginal? Or is the thing 
> >actually a little roommier than Germany in 1938?
> >
> >Doug


Michael Perelman wrote:

When is the last time anyone stood up to the US?  Castro in the 50s?  The
NYT says that the Europeans caved on the world court.  The Dems cave on
everything.  Bush probably can buy the Russians and cow the French on the
Security Council.

It is all very depressing.  I recall hearing how all the Germans left
Hitler ...., but hell, I feel like a powerless German must have felt.

Depressed and feeling the need to mindlessly rant.

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




Comment


I feel you. There are contradictions within the ruling class but the fundamental division into political wings, by which capital soared to its apogee in history no longer, exists. We are faced with a uniquely different political situation.   Arguing within the politico's of capital over the appropriateness of military action is not the meaning of  "left" and "right" or "a split in capital." The resurgence of the fascist movement - the drive towards police state rule, within the multi-national state of the USNA is real. The division of "left" and "right" - that arose on the basis of the French revolution, has lost economic reality and in the context of the current drive to war expresses itself as the lack of political division within the politico's of capital.  

Today the economy is truly global. No matter what party rules in our country, it must be based in the political reality of the South. Here is the political basis for the consolidation of the modern police state (fascist) movement. The differences between Republicans and Democrats are sectarian and rivets on how to win elections. The problem is that American history needs to be more closely examined and understood. The tendency to equate fascism with the classical military form in Germany is a mistake. German fascism arose and assumed its form in response to the Soviet Revolution and in history was the cutting edge of "European" continental reaction to establishing public property relations in the industrial infrastructure. 

The historic fascist movement in America has always assumed another form because of the specific development of "our" capitalism. German fascism most reactionary and chauvinistic sector of finance capital was identified with the industrial sector and its need to crush the working class internally as the basis for assault on Soviet Power.  In America we are in a unique position to analyze the emergence of the fascist movement in world history because this political movement appeared here first. 

We are not dealing with British, Germany or French colonialism and imperialism. Everything starts somewhere. Financial imperialism has remote roots, but the American form of financial imperialism and colonization applied to Latin America was first applied to the South in the 1870s. This meant buying up the productive process and then concentrating on, or creating division to maintain its rule. 

The key to grasping fascism in a specific American context resides in grasping the post-Civil War period and the counter-revolution. Race theory prevents the revolutionaries and American people from understanding that the words "counter revolution" and "overthrowing Reconstruction Governments" meant and will forever mean "the emergence of a form of fascist state rule."

"The emergence of a form of fascist state rule" is best understood in our history as "police state" or government by terror, murder and lynch ropes. The emergence of the fascist form of state rule throughout large areas of the South as a region and the former large plantation areas could not and did not assume the military form of rule because the Southern armies of reaction were defeated on the battle field and shattered. Further, government by terror in the deep South was based on a specific alignment and linking of financial-industrial capital with the remnants of the Slave Power. 

Here is how Peery briefly describes the setting in his "The Future is Up to Us" 

"The Future Is Up To Us: A Revolutionary Talking Politics With The 
American People"

by Nelson Peery.
http//www.Irna.org/speakers. $9.95
or call 1-800-691-6888


"The war ended with a pro-Southern president in office. All the Southern legislators who had resigned their seats at the beginning of the war showed up to legally claim them. What the South had lost on the battlefield they were about to win politically. The radical wing of the Republicans frantically looked for a way to outvote the resurgent Southern elite. They came to the conclusion that they must enfranchise the freemen. Thus, Reconstruction was born. The aims of Reconstruction were first, to crush the Southern elite, and second, to contain the revolutionary forces that would be unleashed by this process. By 1870, this was accomplished and reconstruction cam to an end. Between 1870 and 1890, the political scene was remapped. The interest of the Southern elite merged with the financial industrial oligarchy. Suddenly, and seemingly without reason, the area that had rebelled against the Federal government, became the most patriotic, jingoist, pro-imperialist sector of the country. Historically the merging of the Southern elite and Northern finance capital was the foundation for the emergence of modern American imperialism.

"The defeat of Reconstruction meant that while the cause, the reason for the Civil War and the vision of 1776 was attained, the Civil War vision of freedom and equality was not. The great Freedom Movement of the 1950s and 1960s finally brought to closure that vision of the Civil War." 

Please be tolerant. The above political summation was described in more detail 30 years again in Perry's Negro National Colonial Question. This remarkable text belongs to history and reproducing passages from it makes it historically retrievable. On page 36 of the second edition the following is stated:

"The Hayes-Tilden Agreement and the following withdrawal of Federal Troops from the South in 1877 was only a big event in a well defined trend. To the degree that the financial capitalist politically subdued the landlord planters, to that degree did the monopolies hand the Negroes back into a new slavery. As the troops left, the landlords surfaced as a political power. However, this time they were not in opposition to but were the direct and brutal agents of the bloodthirsty monopolies. It became clear that they never lost military supremacy over the Negroes. At no time and at no place had the Negroes ever won a clear political majority. The pro-slavery storm troops, allied with the terrorist KKK, never allowed Reconstruction to stabilize or develop.

"In the South, the offensive of imperialism had a marked fascist character. The withdrawal of Federal troops was the signal for the 'revolt of the poor whites.'"


Page 37

"The newly enfranchised poor Anglo-Americans from the hills who were maneuvered out of the struggle between the monopolies and the landlords, were imbued with rabid white supremacy and turned against the Negro masses. There was no "revolt of the poor whites" anymore than there was a Hitler-inspired revolt of the poor peasant or the lumpen-proletariat. What took place at the birth of imperialism and fascism was a skilful maneuver which relied on the centuries old white supremacy to co-opt the Populist movement, grab it in the mantle of the Ku Klux Klan and push it onto the stage of history as the hangman of democracy."


Further:

"Some of the fascist characteristics of the counter revolution were: (1) it conformed to the description of being the "open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital."  (2) "The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie - bourgeoisie democracy, for another form - open terrorist dictatorship." (3) "Fascism come to power as a party of attack on the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, on the masses of the people who are in a state of unrest; yet it stages its accession to power as a revolutionary movement against the bourgeoisie on behalf of the whole nation.

"What made up the fascist character of the counter revolution was not simply its brutality or violence, but the fact that the 'revolt of the poor whites' cloaked itself in the mantle of saving the South. The fascist led 'revolt' was the absolute agent of finance capital of the North. The counterrevolution attacked and overthrew the Reconstruction bourgeois democratic governments. Then, the fascist substituted a reign of terror as the new state form of domination . . . . In the Anglo American nation (North - M.P.) the capitalist in the main relied on deception, bribery and fraud; in short on bourgeois democracy. This was not the case in the Black Belt! Here, the rule of finance capital was maintained by an unheard of reign of terror, legal and extra legal, both by police and the KKK." 


Page 39

"A political force, constructed and funded by finance capital, which overthrows a legal bourgeois democratic government and substitutes as a state form the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic elements of finance capital is called fascist. Such a political state we call fascism. " 


The point is that fascist rule within continental America is not a new feature of the political landscape or unprecedented in our history. Our specific history reveals that fascism is not necessarily a political assertion of the industrial capitalist or rather the striving of the industrial sector of finance capital. Identifying the industrial sector of financial-industrial capital as the most reactionary, terrorist and chauvinistic sector of capital - as a fixed category, is contrary to the American reality. Actually, the buying up of productive capacity of the Black belt area - so named after the rich soil and not skin color, by Wall Street Imperialism represented a political shift rooted in a distinct economic sector of capital in the 1870-1900 period. The industrial sector of capital expressed a political program of breaking up the large plantations and carrying out certain visionary demands connected with what in our country is called Jeffersonian democracy. Hence, the political and economic demand of the Radical Republicans promising the freemen "40 arches and a mule." 

The merging of the interest of Wall Street - finance capital, and the former slaveholding elite meant that the political program of capital would be "not one mule to the black" and "he only arches a nigger will be given is the ones he will work for me." Condemning 5 million black sharecroppers to extreme poverty also meant dragging down 6 million white sharecroppers and with them an entire region in America.  

While much of the above rivets on the Marxist conception of imperialism and finance-capital, the essence of American political history has been misunderstood by generations of revolutionaries. This misunderstanding found its echo in the previous decade with descriptions of financial imperialism as "neo-liberal policy" and "neo-liberal speculative capital."  There is nothing liberal about the export of capital, the wholesale destruction of peoples and the reorganization of their economic life, i.e. the domination of the money economy. This was true at the birth of capital as a social power in the form of the slave trade, the destruction of the country side and the domination of the "towns," the consolidation of the colonial system and its dismantling, and then the rise to dominance of the speculator over the world total social capital. Fascism is imperialism turned inward and imperialism is the rule of terror and violence over the subject peoples and subject areas of the world. 

Much has changed since the era of Reconstruction and its aftermath. Capital has reach its economic apogee - the point in which all the quantitative and qualitative expansion is exhausted, and transition to a new mode of production unfolds. The historic fascist movement in America and Germany occurred during the era of the fundamental drive to begin and complete the emergence of financial capital and the mechanization of agriculture or what is the same, the completion of the development of the industrial infrastructure. The fascist movement on continental America has always been under the direct political direction financiers as opposed to the industrial sector. This political reality emerged as the result of the Civil War and birthed American financial capital.

The purpose - most 'things' have a purpose, was to keep 11 million sharecroppers (5 million black) pinned to the toil of agricultural production and pickin that cotton under the domination of the large landowners. Whereas the Russian Revolution broke the power of capital and the large landowners, in America - under remarkably similar economic and social conditions in the core of the South, the landowners triumphed under the domination of Wall Street - financial imperialism. 

America of course is not Germany and in our history the fascist movement was buttressed by extra legal terrorist organizations whose use of the blade, boot and the bullet was merged with the generous use of the hangman nose. The imposition of fascist state rule in the core of the old slaveholding South was not based on political maneuver but the violent overthrow of bourgeois democratic state governments. 

The defeat of the Southern armies of reaction is a story of the absurd - not the sense of the historical tragic. The story of Charles Caldwell in Mississippi is a case in point. Most defeated armies are disarmed and their property confiscated. The shattered Southern armies not only were not disarmed but allowed to keep their horses and return to the life they once knew paying rent to Wall Street to finance their operations. Such were the economic mechanics of the terror. This terror ensured the political disfranchisement of a class of sharecropper, brutal segregation and discrimination. These terrorist organizations could operate more than less freely under the conditions of petite bourgeois production - agriculture, whose scattered conditions and more than less isolated character was radically different from the industrial concentration of millions in the North. There was no significant let up in this terror and violence until the outbreak of World War II and the increase in the velocity of the mechanization of agriculture. 

One absurdity always produces another and another. This thing called "another" seeks out and finds ideological _expression_ after the fact. In the aftermath of WWII, an underground slogan gripped a section of the blacks - "Hitler is the best thing that ever happened to the black man cause a mutherfucker cannot fight him and me at the same time."  "When white folks fight, the black can take flight."  The logic of the absurd is . . . . well, absurd. 

Today is not yesterday and all things have an ending - passing or transition. Given the size of continental America, the fundamental completion of the mechanization of agriculture and the concentration of the laboring classes in large central cities, the modern fascist movement cannot but assume the form of the police state, backed up by terrorist organizations. 

The fascist movement today and the lack of polarity between the Democrats and Republicans is an _expression_ of fundamentally changed circumstances.  The fascist movement today is aimed at defeating all of society and extending the rule of capital in the face of the destruction of the commodity form - value. The bourgeoisie understands the impact of robotics and does not subjectively desire the increased poverty of the world masses. Hell, the bourgeoisie wants to sell everyone something, but is powerless over the revolutionizing of the means of production.  

The situation is complicated because larges sections of the masses are calling for fascism - police rule, because they believe that this form of government can guarantee their economic security. The fear expressed in America today is not that of going to work tomorrow and being blown up by terrorist but rather, not being able to work tomorrow. Something is "wrong with the economy" but our diverse peoples are still clueless. 

The propagandist and agitators of reactions are telling the American peoples, "if we kill something or take some oil, we can live in economic security and have peace in the homeland." "If we close the borders we can have economic security." "If we get rid of the bums dragging down the economy we can have economic security and lets get rid of all the A-Rabs."  

Engaging this ideology on the Internet with common sense and mastering the art of explanation can defeat this propaganda. There is no shortage of oil or anything else in society - other than common sense. What is taking place is the mismanagement of productive power built up by generations of working people and the destruction of society for profits and power over people. 

On the other hand large sections of society are slowly waking up to the danger of police rule and becoming increasingly uncomfortable and hostile to trading democratic rights for security. The minor splits - if you will, appearing in the Democratic Party is their recognition that the morality of the American peoples (peoples) is in flux and neither party has any real base amongst the proletariat as a whole.

The idea that a measure of democracy - today, is our ability to talk on the Internet does not take into account the political structure and history of our country. Stated another way, we can talk and remain talking due to the sectarian interest of the major parties - Dems and Repubs. Everybody isn't getting ready to go to the containment centers of FEMA tomorrow, although that is the plan. Imprisoning millions of people will further force the emergence of exchange outside the free market system - production of value, at a time when the commodity form is under attack. 

Those of us generated on the basis of the 1967 Rebellion in Detroit have come to understand a little "something" about the politics of imperial capital rule. The 1967 Rebellion in Detroit defeated "police state like" containment and forced evolution in the political "superstructure."  

The bourgeois politico's can be defeated in the parliamentary arena and a favorable political evolution can be won. The 1976 and 1978 Vote Communist Campaigns in Detroit contains the strategy and tactics for successful campaigns of the working class. In 1976 General Baker was the Communist candidate and ran against George Edwards, the unashamed representative of the Banking interest - finance capital. The bourgeoisie has no defense against an attack on finance - much less speculation. 

(This history is currently summarized and will be put on-line. What is missing is the mechanics of how the Campaign was carried out from the point of view of the "foot soldiers," the strategists, recruiting and the actual leaflets passed out. We were not reformist - pardon, the revolutionary struggle for reform guided our actions. I did not save any of the literature and this was a horrible mistake. Hell, when we lost by a small percentage I thought we had failed the world proletariat and saved nothing but my volumes of Lenin, Stalin and Marx - and been on alert for the next upsurge. Yea . . . I did a little trade union work but this is over the spoils of imperial plunder . . . .man. Christ - I did not know then, that I would have to "double" as a freaking historian twenty-five years later). 

Fascism may temporarily succeeded in America as a signal that the forces of social revolution have politically begun maturing. Political reaction must proceed from its base in history and so must the revolutionaries. What should be pointed out is that in the past various reactionary movements and ideologies were stabilized based on economic expansion. The political agreement among all classes was that the blacks would remain on the bottom of the social ladder as the economy expanded, which meant that "they" did not have to occupy the bottom. The ideology of white chauvinism had an economic reality or rather was stabilized by the sociological factors of the economic structure of our society.  The ideology of white chauvinism has given way to what is increasingly crystallizing as a violent ideology of Great nation chauvinism or what is called the "new racism," with a cleverly hidden anti-black thread traceable to the overthrow of Reconstruction.   

To understand how and why we will win is a question of political strategy and identifying who will support progress and who supports reaction. Again Perry's "Future" examines this question in details. 

Yea, I feel you and this is a new day - a different political evolution, but there is a way out. I am not talking about slogans of the "Great Proletarian Revolution" and other such rhetoric. There is a revolutionary way out that is rooted in American history. 


"The Future Is Up To Us: A Revolutionary Talking Politics With The 
American People"

by Nelson Peery.
http//www.Irna.org/speakers. $9.95
or call 1-800-691-6888


Melvin P.