Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 13:56:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alex Trotter <uburoi-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Bolshevism & fascism



Donna Jones says, Without the Russian Revolution, would the Spartacists 
have won in Germany?

Well, maybe not. But the German proletariat was not defeated once and for 
all in 1918. A revolutionary situation pertained in Germany until about 
1923, when the Dawes Plan helped stabilize the German economy and reign 
in the hyperinflation. Having been betrayed by Social Democracy, but 
without Bolshevism as an alternate pole of attraction, it does seem very 
likely (although this is of course speculation) that the most radical 
German workers would have found different--and perhaps more 
effective--means of struggle, such as a resurgence of the council movement.
The German Communist Party (KPD) which grew out of the Spartacists, would 
not have been under control of Moscow bureaucrats. It's quite possible 
that it would still have gone wrong, but less likely, because a 
revolution in a West European country with a fully developed industrial 
revolution would have had much better prospects than isolated Russia. The 
best scenario would have been workers in power in both Germany and 
Russia, supporting each other. If that had happened, how it would have 
affected the development of fascist movements in other west European 
countries is anyone's guess.
	About neo-fascism today: I think the danger is exaggerated, 
except maybe in the case of Russia! There people have fallen heavily,
feel extremely humiliated, and experience real hardship, like the Germans 
after WWI. But in the 'West' (including Germany) a lot of the conditions 
that accompanied the rise of protofascism at the end of the last century 
do not pertain anymore. For example, scientific racism and social 
Darwinism no longer enjoy official sanction. And it seems unlikely that 
the ruling classes of the great powers would want to see a situation like 
that of WWII, with their class divided into two camps, fascist and 
antifascist. They too have learned from history, and know how dangerous 
it would be for them to allow ideological fanatics to gain control of the 
state again. In the future, the main adversary for a (zero)workers' 
revolution will be democracy, not fascism.

--Alex Trotter
	



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