New Left, Local Control, and Fascism

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fight parents, and so on. For a syndicalist movement to tion, in which local capitalist income is regarded as the
consider taking power, it must project some unifying private resource of local organized workers' groupings.
principle. If any form of syndicalist movement is to Thus, the goal of the syndicalist ideology, political
come to power, it must -- despite its ideology against control over the local point of production by local groups
centralized authority -- find a solution to its inhering of workers, is an extension of the normal capitalist form
contradictions in the form of a dictatorial arbiter of the of working-class organization, a form which inevitably
issues which pit one local grouping against the other, leads to white racism among workers as long as black
Thus the elevation of Mussolini in the fascist party or and Spanish-speaking people are the visible cutting
the Fuehrer principle of Nazism. The very impotence of
local workers' groupings as a form of working-class
edge of the unemployed and superexploited.
power means that syndicalism could never be a serious Where pure and simple trade unionism does not seek
force, a potential form of government, unless it de- to replace the existing capitalist class, syndicalism
veloped into a fascist movement, proposes to do so by substituting local cooperative
bodies of workers for their former capitalists. Because
The Class-for-Itself distribution and realization are still controlled by the
market, and the surplus privately appropriated by these
It is the connection between syndicalism and fascism cooperative bodies, the economy remains capitalist and
which we have to examine, relying mainly on Marx's the old inequities gradually assert themselves. (Yugocontrast
of the class-for-itself
forms of social organization.
and the class-in-itself slavia, for example.)
Syndicalism to Fascism
It ought to be evident, in a time when interconnections
of all production (and all individual material For syndicalism to become fascism, it must first
existence, therefore) have become worldwide, that develop a new constituency and a corresponding "new
there is no social form capable of affording individuals class theory." It is financed by the capitalist class as a
actual control over their own lives except a unified, tool against the working class. At the same time, it is
centralized worldwide organization of the producers, only useful to its masters so long as it can gain a mass
Or, as an approximation and portent of that ultimate following. Thus both in Italy and more particularly in
form of true humanity, mass-reproductive organiza- Germany fascism's major constituency was not the
tions which simultaneously exercise direct, centralized traditional working class.
control over all production and distribution on at least a
national scale. Such approximations must, of course, Returning veterans dissatisfied with the conditions of
also provide the individual with democratic direct par- civilian life, accustomed to the camaraderie and drama
ticipation, not only in the adoption, but in the very of army life, became ready recruits. While many of
process of formulating national production-distribution these ex-soldiers were workers, the Party addressed
policies, them as a particular constituency, veterans.
At the other extreme, we have capitalist social forms. Similarly, fascism celebrated youth as a class. "Gio-
The typical form of working-class life under capitalism, venezza" was the official Italian hymn to youth; similar
for example, is the trade union or an equivalently examples are found in Nazi propaganda. The image of
parochial association. In these forms the individual youth was extended to attacks on the "older" capitalist
member comes to see control over his own life in the nations, the "old," effete parliamentary bureaucrats.
most alienated terms. That is, the individual trade
unionist, e.g., falsely sees his employer's income as the White collar workers and members of craft unions
product
He regards
of the
his
labor
struggle
of workers
with
in
his
that
employer
particular
as
shop.
an
were recruited on the basis of their special status as
professionals, or craftsmen concerned with the quality
essentially private affair over distribution of local in- of their goods. Unemployed, members of the "under
come and over simple exploitation falsely represented, class," and criminals also found their place in the
at the local point of production. He desires only a movement, especially among the paramilitary organibigger
share of local income for the workers in that zations.
particular place of employment.
Obviously the very contradictions within the fascist
This, as we ought to know, is the basis for white movement between the ultra-rightists and the misracism
among today's trade-union militants. The prob- guided "lefts" demanded a network of groups that
lems of life of the unemployed and superexploited can operated on an independent basis. White collar groups
only be solved by the extension of productive employ- in particular found the violence of the street gangs
ment in the economy, which is not possible except by distasteful. Capitalist supporters balked at workingexpropriating
massive portions of employers' present class demands.
after-tax income. This remedy is in direct conflict with
the syndicalist ideology of the local workers' organiza- Thus syndicalism at the workbench was replaced by