Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It [Paperback]

Leon Trotsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1993

Writing in the heat of struggle against the rise of fascism in Germany, France, and Spain in the 1930s, communist leader Leon Trotsky examines the class origins and character of fascist movements. Building on foundations laid by the Communist International in Lenin's time, Trotsky advances a working-class strategy to combat and defeat this malignant danger. (pamphlet)

Also available in: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 46 pages
• Publisher: Pathfinder Pr (December 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873481062
• ISBN-13: 978-0873481069
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #272,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Politics > Ideologies > Radical Thought
  • #47 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Political

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascism: yesterday and today, March 17, 2002

By 

Martin Boyers (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (Paperback)

Is fascism some type of irrational mass hysteria? Leon Trotsky argues no. The rise to power of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco was a result of the regular workings of the capitalist system and the failure of the workers and farmers of their countries to wage an effective fight to replace it. Trotsky, a leader of the Russian revolution who was exiled, and later murdered by Joseph Stalin, denounces the failure of both the class-collaborationist Social Democracy and the sectarian and corrupt Communist Party to rise to the task.
Trotsky de-mystifies the hold that fascist ideology gained over masses of desperate middle-class elements in these countries, and the decisive support given to these movements by the biggest capitalists of their time. And he demonstrates how fascism can be fought by an effective revolutionary leadership, and how the continuing rule of capital will inevitably create similar fascist menaces as long as it exists.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Written for the battleground, March 8, 2002

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (Paperback)

Trotsky collected the materials in this pamphlet and had them published under this title in the 1930s when the struggle with Fascism was raging around the world. There is a great modern introduction, and footnotes to make the current reader familiar. This was not written for academics, historians, or critics, but as a tool for workers to fight Fascism in the streets, in the plants, and in battle. This tool we need now. Too many people are disoriented by the idea that Fascism is some strange product of history. Trotsky shows what is becoming all too obvious in so many countries today, that Fascism is a permanent threat as long as capitalists and workers struggle.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A brief account of what fascism is, where it comes from, and what to do about it, January 31, 2010

By 

Brian M. Napoletano "Workers of the world, un... (West Lafayette, IN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (Paperback)

A brief collection of some of Trotsky's important letters and articles regarding fascism, this pamphlet offers a brief introduction to the nature of fascism, the conditions that give rise to it, and the strategy of resisting it through a "united front." Based on his observations of the growth of National Socialism (i.e. fascism) in Italy, Germany, Spain, and France, Trotsky concludes that fascism is a mass movement based primarily in petite bourgeoisie and backed by the big capitalist powers. Trotsky identifies a twofold set of conditions that allowed fascism to take hold in Europe: 1) the disorientation and desperation (primarily among the petite bourgeoisie) brought on by the abrupt end of capitalism's growth phase and 2) the absence or failure of a genuinely revolutionary workers' party that offers both the proletariat and the petite bourgeoisie the hope of escape from the grasp of the bourgeoisie. Accordingly, Trotsky assigns a fair proportion of the blame for the rise of fascism in Europe to the leaders of the Communist parties, the Comintern, and the leaders of the social democratic parties who betrayed the workers' revolutions in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. Trotsky links fascism to the reactionary backlash that followed these aborted revolutions, and counterpoises against the notion of the Communist Party as a form of revolutionary hope the notion of fascism, as a mass movement, as a form of revolutionary despair.

In light of the social foundation upon which fascism rests, Trotsky emphasizes the need for a united front led by a revolutionary proletarian party (as the vanguard of the proletarian class) against fascism. In order for the proletariat to inspire confidence among the petite bourgeoisie, however, the revolutionary movement must first possess confidence in itself. This means that the party must be lead by genuine revolutionaries from the working class who possess the commitment and the strategic capacity to build on and encourage the workers' revolutionary initiative. Trotsky also points up the need for solidarity and for the workers to defend themselves against violence from the fascist. Given the level of violence that workers face, he proposes the development of workers' militias and then systematically dismantles the most common oppositions offered to such a proposal. The final sections of the pamphlet discuss the situation in the United States at the time, and Trotsky warns that the same conditions that gave rise to fascism in Europe have already appeared in nascent form in the US. While his prediction of the length of time that the "war economy" could be used to forestall the radicalization of the working classes proved overly optimistic (Trotsky predicted that this delay could not be of "long duration," whereas the capitalist powers in the US have managed to maintain the military economy since the build-up to World War 2), the severe crisis which capitalism has recently entered into, coupled with the rise of the "Tea Party Patriots," the mainstream media's glorification of "Minutemen" vigilante mobs along the US-Mexican border, the vitriolic backlash against even the slightest measures to alleviate the poverty of the working class, the growth of Christian fundamentalism and the demonization of Muslims, and the absence of an independent workers' party, let alone a revolutionary party, all combine to create conditions similar to those described by Trotsky as the grounds from which a fascist movement grows. As Trotsky observes, the most effective way to counter these trends is to build the revolutionary party.