Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win - Proletarian awakening

Table of contents

Of particular importance is the awakening of sections of the proletariat that were intoxicated and poisoned by fascism. Meanwhile, fascism is incapable of defending the workers’ interests against the bourgeoisie, and incapable of keeping the promises that it made, particularly to the fascist trade unions. The greater its victories, the more incapable it is of posing as the proletariat’s protector. Fascism cannot even force the employers to hold to fascist promises about the advantages of common organizations.^[11] Wherever only a few workers are organized in the fascist trade unions, it may be possible for a capitalist to pay better wages to these few. But wherever the masses are herded into the fascist organizations, the employers do not take into consideration the “fascist brothers,” because it would cost too much—and where moneybags and profits are concerned, capitalist gentlemen do not display kindliness.

The awakening of the proletarians has been speeded up in particular by the large number of workers thrown into the street with no sustenance, not only in private concerns but also in public enterprises. Soon after the fascist coup, 17,000 railway workers were laid off. Further layoffs followed and more are definitely in store. The governmental army workshops were closed, leaving 24,000 workers with no income and delivered over to unrestricted exploitation in the private workshops.

A fervent rebellion against fascist economic policies is emerging precisely among the workers organized by the fascists themselves. In Turin, Naples, Trieste, Venice, and a large num- ber of other cities it was the fascist trade unions that took the lead without exception in joining with workers of other parties and organizations—including the Communist and syndicalist workers—in a massive public rally against the layoffs and workshop closures. Several hundred war invalids who had been dismissed from the army workshops traveled from Naples to Rome in order to protest the injustice they had suffered. They hoped Mussolini himself would grant them justice and protection, and instead, as reward for their faith, they were arrested the moment they got off the trains. The dockworkers of Monfalcone and Trieste, the workers of many localities and industries—all of them members of fascist organizations—have moved into action. In some places factory occupations have once again come about, carried out in fact by workers in fascist unions, with sympathetic toleration or support by the squadrons.

These facts show that ideological bankruptcy leads to political bankruptcy, and that it will be the workers above all who will quickly begin thinking once again in terms of their class interests and responsibilities.