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Fascism and Big Business

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A comprehensive study of fascism as it evolved in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

Daniel Guerin's classic work, first published in French in 1936, shows how fascism, far from being an aberration of mass psychology, arose from the specific conditions of a social system in crisis. At first covertly, then increasingly openly, layers of big business financed and promoted the fascist movements in Italy and Germany.

Guerin contrasts the fascists' initially radical anticapitalist demagogy with their moves to shore up the capitalist profit system once they form the government.

"The profound causes that drove the Italian and German industrialists to bring fascism to power may produce the same effects elsewhere," Guerin concludes. (from the back cover)

In his preface to the 1965 French edition (included in this edition) Guerin wrote: "In this immense comparison I was undertaking, the writings of Leon Trotsky on Germany and France served as a guide." Trotsky's main writings on Germany are collected in the book "The Struggle against Fascism in Germany," and on France in "Leon Trotsky on France." They are also must reading. But Trotsky's concept of fascism was worked out in the course of trying to mobilize the working class against it. Guerin took Trotsky's basic ideas and researched them further. The Struggle against Fascism in Germany (Merit)Leon Trotsky on France
Today fascism is mostly used as an epithet, or in conjuction with talking about the death of 6 million Jews (a few also know that a half million Rom [Gypsies] were also killed, roughly proportionate to the 6 million Jews). But anti-Semitism was not even part of the ideology of fascism in Italy. The rounding up of Italian Jews only took place after German troops came in to fortify Mussolini's weak position, and Hitler forced the issue. This book compares fascism in Italy and Germany--what was the same, what was different. It explains what social classes supported fascism, and why. Fascism is a mass reactionary movement, financed by big business (especially heavy industry), but based on declassed plebeians and the ruined middle classes. Only the working class has the ability to stop it, and only by understanding this can we ensure that it doesn't happen again.
Another book that is essential to understanding anti-Semitism, which was a key ingredient of German fascism, is "The Jewish Question; A Marxist Interpretation," by Abram Leon, who managed to complete the work in occupied Belgium, before being caught and sent to die in Auschwitz.The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation