excerpts from
George Seldes' Victory over Fascism
(New York, 1943)
In George Seldes' "Conclusion"
to Facts and Fascism (In Fact, Inc., New York, 1943) he writes
of "VICTORY OVER FASCISM".
After saying that "it is 'We,' the democracies" who
will win the war (W. W. II), Seldes says:
Thus the greatest drive and the greatest
war in history which has been paid for by men and organizations
owning a vast part of the world's wealth and covetous of all of
it, will come to an end with the destruction of the world's special
interests. A world ends for Privilege, the great day dawns for
the peoples of the earth.
"Unless our own State Department
fascisti and the reactionaries in American political life, in
business, and in the armed forces interfere, the outlook is brilliant
for the restoration of all the old freedoms to European peoples
and the additional freedoms from fear and from want -- the economic
freedoms which can be won for the democratic Many with no harm
to anyone but the fascist Few
All the enemies of the people of the
world are united behind the Fascist International. When that is
broken we will have come the main part of the way to a practical
reality which previously had been regarded as a dream of idealists.
Of course this will be possible only if Fascism (reaction) does
not exist in disguise and wrapped in new flags and sheltered by
wealth and power and accepted by peoples accustomed to being betrayed
by rulers and the propaganda organs of these rulers, the world's
corrupted press.
Fascism is Reaction. When we destroy
international Fascism we must at the same time destroy national
Fascism, we must replace the reactionary forces at home with truly
democratic forces which will represent all of us.
We, however, will also inherit the job
left unfinished on the battlefield: it is we, the civilians, and
the soldiers who will again become civilians, who will have to
continue to fight native Fascism **for many years.** We will do
this in the elections, in Congress, in the labor unions, in the
press, in the churches, in the schools -- everywhere. Otherwise
we will stupidly have dropped the victory won in Africa, in Italy,
in Germany, and in Japan" [Asterisks my only addition; the
rest is obvious.]
**********
APPENDIX I: WHAT IS FASCISM?
MUSSOLINI: "Fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary
when many liberals of today were prone before the triumphant beast
[Democracy], has not today any impediment against declaring itself
illiberal and anti-liberal.... Fascism knows no idol, worships
no faith; it has once passed, and, if needful, will turn to pass
again over the more or less decomposed body of the Goddess of
Liberty." (Gerarchia, March, 1923.)
*****
PALME DUTT: The fascist system is a system
of direct dictatorship, ideologically masked by the 'national
idea.' . . . It is a system that resorts to a popular form of
social demagogy (anti-Semitism, occasional sorties against usurer's
capital and gestures of impatience with the parliamentary 'yelling
shop') in order to utilize the discontent of the petit-bourgeois,
the intellectual and other strata of society; and to corruption
through the building up of a compact and well-paid hierarchy of
fascist units, a party apparatus and a bureaucracy. At the same
time, Fascism strives to permeate the working class by recruiting
the most backward strata of the workers to its ranks, by playing
upon their discontent, by taking advantage of the inaction of
Social-Democracy, etc. . . ."
"The combination of social demagogy,
corruption and active White terror, in conjunction with extreme
imperialist aggression in the sphere of foreign politics, are
the characteristic features of Fascism. In periods of acute crisis
for the bourgeoisie, Fascism resorts to anti capitalistic phraseology,
but, after it has established itself at the helm of state, it
casts aside its anti-capitalist rattle, and discloses itself as
a terrorist dictatorship of big capital."
*****
13th Plenum of Executive Committee of
the Communist International, Moscow, 1933:
"Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship
of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist
elements of finance capital." --
*****
RAYMOND GRAM SWING: "Fascism is
a reorganization of society to maintain unequal distribution of
economic power and a substitution of barbaric values for individualist
civilization." -- "Forerunners of American Fascism."
*****
HEYWOOD BROUN: "I am quite ready
to admit that the word Fascism has been used very loosely. Sometimes
we call a man a Fascist simply because we dislike him, for one
reason or another. And so I'll try to be pretty literal in outlining
some of the evidence which I see as the actual danger of Fascism
in America. First of all, we need a definition. Fascism is a dictatorship
from the extreme Right, or to put it a little more closely into
our local idiom, a government which is run by a small group of
large industrialists and financial lords. Of course, if you want
to go back into recent history, the influence of big business
has always been present in our federal government. But there have
been some checks on its control. I am going to ask latitude to
insist that we might have Fascism even though we maintained the
pretense of democratic machinery. The mere presence of a Supreme
Court, a House of Representatives, a Senate and a President would
not be sufficient protection against the utter centralization
of power in the hands of a few men who might hold no office at
all. Even in the case of Hitler, many shrewd observers feel that
he is no more than a front man and that; his power is derived
from the large munitions and steel barons of Germany . . . Now
one of the first steps which Fascism must take in any land in
order to capture power is to disrupt and destroy the labor movement....
I think it is not unfair to say that any business man in America,
or public leader, who goes out to break unions, is laying foundations
for Fascism." (May, 1936.)
Progressive News & Views List, PNEWS-L@SJUVM.stjohns.edu,
9/4/95
From: Butler Crittenden, butlerc@mailhost.hooked.net
George
Seldes page
Index
of Website
Home Page