AUT: Aufheben on Barrot and 'Barrot' on Aufheben on 'Barrot'

["dave" <johngray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As requested the 1992 Aufheben review of Fascism/Antifascism and from
the new issue a response to it from Gilles Dauv=E9, the "author
formally known as Jean Barrot".

Please note the conversion to plain text means some emphases have
been lost.

Having re-read the original review in the course of scanning it I'm
struck by the fact that in addition to the limitations of its
appreciation of either the thinking of the french ultra-left 'Barrot'
belonged to or of the 'Italian left' he was originally writing about
-- understandable perhaps given the limited material about them in
english then or now -- it is also clearly unaware of the critique of
anti-fascism in ultra-left and anarchist circles in the UK in the
late seventies and early eighties. If Fascism/Antifascism was indeed
'influential' as they suggest it was because when it was first
published in 1982 it struck a chord with people who already rejected
the ideology of  'anti-fascism'.

dave

**********************************
Fascism/Antifascism is available on line at :

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6397/fasant.htm

The new edition of 'Eclipse and Re-emergence' Dauv=E9 mentions is on
line at :

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill//Lobby/3909/epre.html

***********************************
>From Aufheben no.1 Autumn 1992

REVIEWS.

FASCISM/ANTIFASCISM
"Fascism/Antifascism" by Jean Barrot. Black Cat Press, Edmonton (1982)
Reproduced by Unpopular Books, Box 15, 138 Kingsland High Road, London
E8.

This text first appeared in 1979 as part of an introduction to a
collection of writings by Italian left communists (Bordigans) on the
Spanish Civil War. Although not recent, the pamphlet is being reviewed
here as it concerns a contemporary issue: the relation of antifascism
to the class struggle. Half the text is taken up with historical
examples (Italy, Germany, Chile, Portugal, Spain, Russia, the Paris
Commune, Mexico). Space does not allow discussion of these cases here.
Instead, the focus will be on the general argument put forward by
Barrot.

The translator's introduction sums up the argument's
weaknesses (which, it is suggested, are the weaknesses of Left
communism itself) as follows: dogmatic Marxism, positivist economics,
obsolete class analyses and contempt for the working class. It is the
last of these which is the most important limitation of Barrot's case.
The strength of his case, however, is its clear-sighted and
consistently uncompromising attack on the state, "an instrument of
class domination", which most leftists still propose to treat as
neutral and thus to "use". This theme saturates  Barrot's argument.

Barrot's thesis is very simple; it is that struggling against fascism
(in particular) necessarily entails supporting democracy, that
capitalism will necessarily remain intact if antifascists support one
of its forms against another. All manifestations of antifascism
ultimately strengthen the democratic state at the expense of the class
struggle; thus both fascism and its nemesis antifascism lead to
totalitarianism (the strong state) not communism. Dictatorship, says
Barrot, is not a weapon of capital but a tendency of capital.

But while criticizing antifascists for allegedly supporting
democracy, Barrot also asks: "do we have a CHOICE? Democracy will
transform itself into dictatorship as soon as is necessary . . .  The
political forms which capital gives itself do not depend on the
action of the working class any more than they depend on the
intentions of the bourgeoisie." (p. 8).

Barrot is clearly emphasizing the logic of the capitalist state at
the expense of the counter-logic of the proletariat. The picture he
paints is of a highly successful capitalist state continually beating
the working class to the first punch so that the latter are often
duped ultimately into supporting rather than overthrowing the state.
Given this, it is no wonder that many of the struggles the working
class engage in (such as the fight against fascism) are at best
futile and at worst counterproductive; the working class themselves
may merely be contributing to the state's tendency to
totalitarianism.

But if we abandon the assumptions, first, that it is the state
(capital) that always moves first (with the proletariat as hapless
respondants), and, second, that antifascism is a homogeneous
phenomenon that, by its very nature, takes the side of the democratic
state, we get quite a different picture of this particular arena of
struggle. Before exploring alternative perspectives on antifascism,
however, it is only fair to measure Barrot's account against current
antifascist groups.

For example, the Bennite view (which partly informs the ethos of the
Anti-Nazi League) is that "we" (on the left, broadly conceived)
should forget our differences and concentrate on fighting the
fascists (implicitly: we should unite around the lowest common
denominator and vote Labour). This argument is based in part on the
claim that the reason for the rise of Hitler was that the KPD and SPD
(social democrats and communists) were fighting each other instead of
the fascists. But Barrot points out that the left wing forces
(fighting each other) were not defeated by the Nazis; rather, the
proletarian defeat had already taken place when the fascist
repression occurred; the revolutionaries were defeated not by fascism
but by democracy. The Anti-Nazi League are also criticized (by the
Revolutionary Communist Party, for example) for trying to build a
mass movement around the issue of Nazis and fascists, when it is the
(non-fascist and anti-Nazi) racists in power who are the main problem
for (the non-white) working class of Britain. The word "Nazi" is
emotive, so it is easy for people to agree to oppose "Nazism" while
they may continue to condone racism and patriotism. Similarly, at a
recent anti-fascist/anti-Nazi public meeting, I was dismayed to hear
a speaker from Anti-Fascist Action criticize fascists on the grounds
that they did not really support "our" country (implying that
patriotism -- supporting "our" bourgeoisie -- is desirable).

In these examples we can see how Barrot has pointed accurately to
problems of typical antifascist positions; there is a clear tendency
to oppose fascism on the grounds that it is undemocratic and a threat
to "our" country. In such cases we are in effect, as Barrot says,
being asked to rally to the support of one manifestation of the state
against another. A classic example is the case of the Spanish Civil
War, in which the anarchist strategy for fighting fascism was to join
forces with the republican government.

However, it is not enough to dismiss all the various contemporary
antifascist manifestations on these grounds alone. The point is that
many people become involved in antifascism not to support democracy
but simply because they recognize the need to organize specifically
against the BNP and similar groups who intimidate minorities, and
against racist attacks in general. The issue of racism is not
addressed by Barrot in this pamphlet. In his defence, it is worth
stating that fascism and racism are by no means synonymous
(conceptually or historically); racism is simply a contingent tool of
fascism and other forms of capitalism. But racism is most people's
experience of present day neo-fascism; fascism has almost become a
theoretical justification for racism in many cases.

Barrot's argument is directed at those who are exclusively fighting
fascism; but he also refers to struggles in Italy that were
antifascist without being "specifically antifascist: to struggle
against Capital meant to struggle against fascism as well as against
parliamentary democracy." (p. 13). In other words, not all
antifascist activity entails supporting democracy. The knub of the
argument is this, however: the state transforms itself to suit
capital, thus "[t]he proletariat will destroy totalitarianism
[including fascism] only by destroying democracy and all political
forms at the same time." (p. 17). Barrot presents us with a sharp
dichotomy in which anything less than his pre-defined programme for
revolution (the attack on wage labour) is worse than useless. While
we would of course endorse an all-out attack on wage labour, and
while we reserve the right to criticize the recent wave of
antifascist groups, it is a necessary part of our support for one
class against the other that we confront all forces which attempt to
divide us along lines of "race", nationality etc. Barrot's pamphlet
is important in that it warns us against the dangers of involvement
in popular fronts; but it should not be taken as providing a
theoretical justification for ignoring the concrete problems which
affect particular sections of our class.
******************************************
from Aufheben no.7 autumn 1998

Intakes:
Fascism/anti-fascism: 'Barrot' replies

In Aufheben 1 (summer 1992) we carried a short review of the
influential text Fascism/Anti-fascism by Jean Barrot. We reviewed it
because it related to struggles that were going on at that time, and
because it was an analysis to which we were basically sympathetic. The
critique of anti-fascism is necessary and important; but we also felt
that such a critique tended to dogmatism. This is part of a more
general weakness of the Italian left from which it derives. Like other
parts of the left communist opposition to the orthodoxy promoted from
Moscow, the Italian left tried to maintain communist positions in the
face of a virtually complete capitulation to opportunism in the
workers' movement. Part of the price it paid was that it became rigid
and mechanical, with principles tending to become dogmas. If, as the
situationists put it, we must be against sectarianism but the only
defence against sectarianism is a strict theoretical line, that needs
to be balanced by a equally vigilant resistance to the tendency of
theory to degenerate into ideology. Opposition to anti-fascism, as
opposition to trade unions and leftism generally, should be more than
ritual denunciation; it should involve an attempt to understand
contradictions which arise within movements and individual
proletarians. Intransigence, the notion of the invariance of the
communist programme, resolute opposition to opportunism - these
aspects of the Italian left enabled it to hold on to the insights of
the revolutionary wave that followed the first world war. But they
have also been its weaknesses: a refusal to see anything new, an
inability to relate to and learn from the class struggle effectively,
a tendency to become a sect preaching its 'truths' to a world that
does not listen.

In repeating in our review the translator's attributions of the
weaknesses of left communism to Barrot we were in retrospect unfair.
Moreover, in voicing our reservations on the Italian left's position
on anti-fascism here and in our review we would not want to support
the liberal and leftist misrepresentations of these Italian
communists' opposition toanti-fascism. Historically, as indicated in
the Barrot text, and in our review, the Italian Left did not hold
back from fighting fascists among other enemies of the proletariat.
As they pointed out, the real 'united front' of this period was the
alliance of the democratic government and fascism against the
proletariat:

'The government ... had, by a decree of 20th October 1920, sent
60,000 demobilised officers into the training camps, with the
obligation to sign up for the groups of "squadristi". Whenever
fascists burned down the premises of unions or the socialist or
communist parties, the army and the gendarmerie were always on the
side of the fascists. And these armed forces were those of the
liberal democratic state'

(The Italian Communist Left 1926-45; A Contribution to the History of
the Revolutionary Movement, ICC, p. 21)

Our review of Fascism/Anti-fascism was published six years ago. We
return to it now because we have only just received this reply from
'Jean Barrot' himself, which we welcome.

*********************************************

This letter is about your 1992 review of Fascism/Antifascism, a
pamphlet published in England twice, and then again by Wildcat, under
my pen name Jean Barrot, an alias I got rid of a few years ago. (A
new revised version of The Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist
Movement, first published by Black & Red, Detroit, 1974, has now been
published in London by Antagonism Press under my name 'Gilles
Dauv=E9.)

Although I'm happy to see Fascism/Anti-fascism available in English,
it was never intended to exist in that form. In 1979, I wrote a
90-page preface to a selection of articles from the 'Italian left'
magazine Bilan (1933-38) on Spain. Years later, I found comrades then
and now unknown to me had edited a much shorter English version, as
of course they were perfectly free to do. But what was meant to be a
reflection on communization (analysing Russia and Spain among other
historical examples, and actually criticizing Bilan), has been
narrowed to an anti-anti-fascist stand. Maybe this is why your
article regards my views as both valid and unfortunately one-sided.
I'll try to make myself clearer.

1. Can the proletariat prevent capitalist society from periodically
turning into a dictatorship?

No.

Class conflict commands modem times, and centres around working class
submission and/or resistance, rebellion, insurrection... It does not
follow that the workers could divert the political course at any time
and avoid the after-effects of their own attempts to change history.

For instance, active class struggle determined the birth and
life-span of the Weimar Republic. After World War 1, revolution was
stifled in Germany by a combination of democracy and fascism (the
Freikorps used by the SPD-led government to crush workers' risings in
1919-20 were real fascist groupings, with many future nazis in their
ranks). The Weimar system was built out of proletarian assaults and
setbacks. Then the workers had a say, albeit a degraded and mystified
one: the councils movement was reduced to a bureaucratic institution,
and the revolution that failed gave way to a left-dominated
socialist-orientated regime. Working class pressures, and the
conflict between a reformist majority and revolutionary minorities,
shaped the post-war period. Even when right-of-centre politicians
were in office, even with Hindenburg as president (the SPD called to
vote for him in 1932 as a bulwark against Hitler...), workers
remained the pivotal force of Weimar's early days, and often its
decisive factor.

But the combined and rival weights of SPD and KPD made their own
weaknesses. With the 1929 crash, when even the ruling class had to be
disciplined, this time capital found that not just radicals but also
respectful union leaders could be a burden. The bourgeois-reformist
compromise set in motion by the workers 14 years before became more a
hindrance than a help.

Hitlerism was not inevitable, with its grotesque and murderous
paraphernalia. But on January 30th, 1933, some strong central power
was the order ofthe day, and the only options left to Germany were
straightforwardly statist and repressive ones, to be settled out of
proletarian reach.

Paradoxically, it's the sheer strength of wage-labour (reformist and
radical) that deprives it now and again of any say in the running of
affairs.

2. How far can anti-fascism contribute to a revolutionary movement?

Of course, anti-fascism is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Durruti,
Orwell and Santiago Carrillo all qualify as antifascists. But the
question remains: What is anti-fascism anti? And what is it 'pro'
exactly?

I am against imperialism, be it French, British, US or Chinese. I am
not an 'anti-imperialist', since that is a political position
supporting national liberation movements opposed to imperialist
powers.

I am (and so is the proletariat) against fascism, be it in the form
of Hitler or Le Pen. I am not an 'anti-fascist', since this is a
political position regarding fascist state or threat as a first and
foremost enemy to be destroyed at all costs, i.e. siding with
bourgeois democrats as a lesser evil, and postponing revolution until
fascism is disposed of.

Such is the essence of anti-fascism. 'Revolutionary antifascism' is a
contradiction in terms - and in reality. Anything communist
inevitably goes beyond the boundary of antifascism, and sooner or
later clashes with it.

When Spanish workers took arms against the military putsch in July
'36, they were obviously fighting fascism, but (whatever they may
have called themselves) they were not acting as anti-fascists, as
their move aimed both at the fascists and the democratic state.
Afterwards, however, when they let themselves be trapped within the
institutional framework, they became 'anti-fascists', fighting their
fascist foes while at the same time supporting their own democratic
enemies.

Revolutionary critics of anti-fascism have been repeatedly accused of
sabotaging the fight against fascism, of being Franco's or Hitler's
'objective' allies - which soon comes close to 'subjective'... The
sad irony is, only the proletariat and communists are fundamental
opponents of fascism. Anti-fascism is always more supportive of
democracy than opposed to fascism: it won't take anti-capitalist
steps to repel fascism, and will prefer its own defeat rather than
risk proletarian outbursts. It was no accident or mistake that the
Spanish bourgeoisie and the Stalinists wasted time and energy getting
rid of anarchist peasant communes when they were supposed to do
everything to win the war: their number one priority was not and had
never been to smash Franco, but to keep the masses under control.

So the point is not that there are lots of ways of being an
anti-fascist, and that non-revolutionary anti-fascist individuals can
turn revolutionary, as of course many will, but that anti-fascism as
such, in order to avoid a dictatorial state, submits to the
democratic state. That's its nature, its logic, its proven past, and
all the 'yes buts' about it got drowned in the Barcelona May '37
blood of those workers who'd hoped to outsmart moderate anti-fascism.
Anti-fascism is not like a meeting one bursts into and forces to
adopt a new programme. It's not a form: it has a content and a
political substance of its own. It's not a 'bourgeois' shell wherein
subversion could put proletarian flesh.

Needless to say, I am not suggesting die-hard communists should only
take part in 'pure' anti-wage-labour attacks and keep clear of all
anti-fascist groups, waiting for them to catch up with us. No doubt
the rejection of everything fascism stands for (ethnicism, racism,
sexism, nationalism, law and order, outright reactionary culture,
etc.) is often a first step to rebellion. In fact, quite a few young
wo/men take part in demos against the French National Front because
they realize it asks for even more submission to a social order they
hate, not so much because it is a threat to a parliamentary democracy
they don't care about all that much. Then politics comes along trying
to channel this into a support for democracy. These spontaneous
gestures will develop into a critique of the roots of this world if
they reject the basis of anti-fascism: a respect for democratic
capitalism. Only by pointing out the issues at stake can we
contribute to this maturation.

Beating off fascism means destroying its pre-conditions, i.e. its
social causes =3D capitalism.

3. How can we defeat one of the worst divisive forces within
proletarians: racism?

Certainly not by treating racism as another issue to be added to
anti-capitalism.

Racism stresses a difference. Anti-racism does the opposite: it
emphasizes something in common between those that racism divides.
This common element is usually humankind or humanity. Now, when a
bourgeoisie also appeals to that in relation to his workers, what
will revolutionaries object? Obviously this common factor can't be
the same for those who manage this world and those who'd like to
change it.

Actually, what we often tend to do is replace 'We're all humans' by
'We're all proles'. We say: (a) a black worker is the same as a white
worker, (b) both aren't the same as a black boss or a white boss. The
snag is, this does not attack racism; it supports solidarity, as
indeed we must, but solidarity is precisely what's lacking because of
racism. So we're just substituting a proletarian anti-racism for a
humanist one. Yet both contend with racism in its visible form and
miss its causes.

In '68, though there were racists around, including among
wage-earners, the French bourgeoisie could not use racism as a major
dividing weapon, because of the unifying effect of mass class
struggle. Later, as workers' militancy subsided, divisions appeared.
To mention just one important landmark, the Talbot 1983 strike
revealed a growing split between so-called national and foreign
car-workers. Such  a rift was more a result than a cause. Is it mere
coincidence that 1983-4 also witnessed the rise of the National
Front? It's not the lack of adequate anti-racist campaigns that
helped Le Pen get now as much as 15 per cent of the votes. It's the
decline of collective resistance among the workers. Racism manifests
itself as an ideology, but is not first ideological. It's a practical
phenomenon, a social relation: one of the most vicious aspects of
competition between wage-labourers, a consequence of the decay of
living and fighting communities. The 'racialization' of the working
class goes along with its atomization.

The proletariat is not weak because it's divided: its weaknesses
breed division. So anything that makes it stronger strikes a blow at
racism. While avoiding organized humanistic anti-racism, one can
combat racism when one comes across it in real life, as many
non-racist proles spontaneously do in a pub, on the shopfloor or in a
picket line, recreating some form of autonomous community.

For  example, the December '95 movement silenced Le Pen's rhetoric.
Likewise, a numberof estate riots have brought together people from
north Africa, black and 'white' origins.

The communist movement has both a class and a human content. An
interesting question is: which class struggle activity gets
proletarians together, and practically tends to do away with racism?

Workers can be militant and racist at the same time.

In 1922, South African bosses lowered white miners' wages and opened
a number of jobs to blacks. 'White' riots ended in a blood-bath: over
200 miners killed. As in strikes against female or foreign labour,
this was wage-earners' self-defence at its worst.

On the other hand, while Holland was occupied by nazi Germany, Dutch
workers went on strike against the way Jews and Jewish workers were
being deported and discriminated against.

The key to South African labour's reactionary stand, or to Dutch
solidarity, does not lie in racist/non-racist minds. Minds are
moulded by past and present social relationships and actions. The
more open, global, potentially universal and therefore 'human' a
demand or an action is, the least likely it is to be narrowed to
sexist, xenophobic or racist lines.

Imagine a workplace. Fighting to save jobs could more easily bring
the workforce closer to racism than, say, asking for a flat =A320 per
week increase for every single employee on the premises. The former
encloses people within defensive gestures, confines them to 'their'
plant, isolates them from other workplaces and eventually divides
them, between themselves (Who'll get the sack? My work-mate, I hope,
not me!) However small, the latter demand unites proles irrespective
of gender, nationality or professional skill, and can link them with
workplaces outside their own, since many other people can take it up
and start asking for the same increase, or for something that's even
more unifying.

Some claims and tactics reinforce trade, local or 'race' differences.
Others involve the interplay of an ever larger community, open up new
issues, and break 'ethnic', etc. divisions.

The only way to defeat racism is to address it on a general and
'political' level, showing how any division between proles (and
racism even more viciously than xenophobia) always ends in them (all
proles) being worse off, more degraded, more submissive.

Racism is to be addressed, not as a separate question, and never as
an obnoxious ideology to be smashed by a warm-hearted one.

Gilles Dauv=E9, 1997


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