Fascism

What is Fascism? And is it an imminent threat today?

The election of Donald Trump in the US and the rise of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections has naturally been received with alarm by millions of people around the world. Some have even warned of a new rise of fascism. Rob Sewell - editor of Socialist Appeal - asks: what is fascism? And does it pose an imminent threat today?

Cable Street 1936: An historic stand remembered

The 4th October marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, a momentous event in which the working people of London united to deliver a decisive blow against the menace of British fascism. In this article, Sam Ashton commemorates the brave stand of those workers who fought the Mosleyite thugs, while drawing important lessons for today's struggles against the English Defence League and BNP.

Trotsky and the Struggle Against Fascism

Leon Trotsky spent the last decade of his life in a struggle to keep alive the genuine method of Marxism in all fields. While on all sides Marxism was being distorted and misused both by the Stalinists and the Social Democracy to justify their own betrayal of the working class movement, Trotsky consistently put forward a revolutionary position on all problems facing the workers. One of the immediate dangers facing the international working class was the rise of fascism and therefore this new phenomenon clearly needed to be understood.

Trotsky and the fight against Fascism

Seventy-five years ago today, on January 30th 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Two months later the Reichstag voted him dictatorial powers. The workers' parties were banned and their leaders thrown into concentration camps. The strongest labour movement in Europe was destroyed without even breaking a pane of glass, as Hitler boasted. The way was clear for genocide and world war.

Why Hitler Came To Power

"The new generation, in particular, must understand the part Stalinism played in German events prior to Hitler's seizure of power, if they wish to understand its present role", wrote Ted Grant in 1944. Trotsky and the Fourth International alone warned of the catastrophe the Nazi's would bring upon the workers of Germany, Europe and of the Soviet Union. The Stalinists surrendered the German masses to Hitler and even proclaimed the coming to power of Hitler as a victory expressing the crisis of capitalism, boastfully proclaiming 'our turn next'.

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