In
light of a general increase in reactionary sentiment in Swedish
society, driven by the decay of the imperialist world system, which is
reflected in Sweden by the intensification of the conflict between labor
and capital, we understand that the issue of fascism and anti-fascism
is on many people’s minds. We understand that the old “violent right” is
on the rise again. In recent years, we have had a taste of this with
the attack in Gubbängen in 2024 and the assaults in central Stockholm in
early September last year. This is not surprising. We understand that
movements come and go. The same applies to the so-called “anti-fascist
left.” This movement, which barely exists today, will experience an
upswing along with the former. They exist in dependence on each other.
In light of this, Kommunisten wishes
to contribute to the discussion on what anti-fascism means, and to do
so, let us first clarify what fascism is. Furthermore, we believe it is
important to clarify what revolutionary violence is and is not.
What is fascism?
During
the Comintern era, fascism was defined as the most reactionary, openly
terrorist form of the dictatorship of finance capital that the
bourgeoisie establishes to suppress the working class and all
progressive forces in society. This definition has since been developed
after the Comintern era by Chairman Mao and Chairman Gonzalo, where
fascism is defined as a form of government – not a set of laws or
opinions of a few rulers. Something can be reactionary without being
fascist. Confusing the two means that “all reactionaries become
fascists” and thus the understanding of fascism loses its relevance.
As Chairman Mao taught us, we distinguish between state system and form of government as two parts of a whole, where the question of state system is the place that classes have in the state (which class dictatorship prevails) and the form of government is the way in which these ruling classes organize their power. The form of government in a given country, under a bourgeois state system, can be either bourgeois democratic or fascist.
But in both cases, it always represents the dictatorship of the
reactionary classes. If one does not understand fascism in this way, one
makes the mistake of equating fascism with dictatorship, and thus a
bourgeois democratic government is not a dictatorship. Then one follows
like a tail one of the factions of the monopoly bourgeoisie based on the
farce of “defending democracy” or “voting for the least bad.”
It
is also important to clarify that fascism is not merely a lack of
“democratic rights,” as many people believe. There is no state in the
world (apart from the new powers in the people’s wars, where a new state
is being built) where developments are moving toward giving the people
more democratic rights.
Fascism
emerged during the crisis of democracy. One of the first
Marxist-Leninists to study fascism during its emergence was José Carlos
Maríategui, founder of the Communist Party of Peru, who lived in Italy
under Mussolini. In his book The Crisis of Democracy (1923), he pointed
out how capitalism’s fundamental contradiction, between the increasingly
socialized nature of production and its private appropriation,
expressed in the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat, has undermined democracy, so that parliament becomes merely
the parliament of the ruling classes. From the birth of the bourgeois
state, when the bourgeoisie was the vanguard of the people and led the
bourgeois-democratic revolution to victory, a process of decay began.
The core of bourgeois democracy was that parliament was the legislative
branch of the state. In the beginning, parliament was divided between
two factions of the bourgeoisie, the conservatives and liberals, and
class parties, such as workers’ parties. But when free competition
turned into its opposite—monopoly—democracy went into crisis. The
dividing line between the conservative and liberal sections of the
bourgeoisie was blurred. Legislation began to be increasingly
transferred from parliament to technical committees, advisors, lobbyist
groups, etc. All these gigantic entities of unelected bureaucrats
surrounding parliament write the bills. And elections to parliament now
serve almost exclusively to legitimize the bourgeois dictatorship. This
created the conditions for fascism – a crisis in parliament, which meant
that parliament was increasingly subjugated to the executive branches
of the state.
In
the age of imperialism, there is no faction within the bourgeoisie in
the imperialist countries that constitutes a progressive element. They
apply reaction across the board. This means that the tendency is for
bourgeois democratic rights to be reduced.
We
would also like to clarify that fascism cannot be reduced to the use of
violence and terror. Chairman Gonzalo explains in an interview with the
newspaper El Diario in 1988 how:
”With
regard to identifying fascism with terror, with repression, we think
that this is a mistake. What’s involved is the following: if one
remembers Marxism, the State is organized violence, that is the classic
definition. All states use violence because they are dictatorships How
else would they assert themselves to oppress and exploit? They couldn’t
do it. Consequently what happens is that fascism develops a broader,
more refined, more sinister violence. But to identify fascism as being
the same as violence is a crass error. ”
So what constitutes fascism and what is its core? Fascism has three central components:
1) Negation of civil democratic rights
2) Corporatism
3) Philosophical eclecticism
The
negation of civil democratic rights must be understood as the negation
of parliament. Parliament loses its function when decisions on which
laws to enact are made in other chambers. This does not mean that
parliament needs to be closed, but that legislation does not come from
parliament but from the executive branches of the state. In Sweden
today, we are seeing the restriction of most bourgeois democratic
rights. There is no true freedom of assembly, as you must obtain
permission from the police for public gatherings, and there is no
freedom of expression, as we have laws against hate crimes, etc. But
again, the denial of civil democratic rights is not enough for a state
to be fascist, because then all the countries in the world would be
fascist and the word would lose its meaning. The core of fascism is
corporatism.
Corporatism
means that the state is built on corporations. The word corporatism
comes from the Latin “corporo,” which means to make into a body—the
state should be made into a body. Corporatism means that society is
built on Mussolini’s thesis “everything within the state, nothing
against the state, nothing outside the state.” Corporatism attempts to
organize the state on the pretext of class cooperation, which is false
since class antagonisms remain and are intensifying. Corporations give
the state-monopolistic faction of the upper bourgeoisie an advantage
over the private faction of monopoly capital. The state-monopolistic
faction within the bourgeoisie is based on a high concentration and
centralization of capital, the omnipotence of monopolies in the economy
and politics of capitalist countries, which leads to a fusion of the
monopoly apparatus and the state apparatus. The financial oligarchy
subjugates the bourgeois state. This faction uses state intervention and
state-owned companies to strengthen its own position and increase its
own share of capital domination. For example, LKAB, a state-owned mining
company where both Marcus Wallenberg and Göran Persson have served as
chairmen of the board, generates large profits for the Wallenbergs by
purchasing products from, for example, Atlas Copco (also owned by the
Wallenberg sphere). Various groups of monopoly capitalists are drawn
into the struggle for control of the state apparatus, for positions in
state bodies (directly or through proxies) and to seize as much as
possible of the state pie. The conflict between the private and state
factions within the upper bourgeoisie is real and fierce, which is why
the introduction of fascism is not a simple but a difficult process, not
only because of the masses’ contempt for fascism but also because parts
of the bourgeoisie despise it. For private monopoly capital,
corporatism can be seen as expensive and full of concessions to both
government spending and the other faction within the upper middle class,
which is its competitors. Here we want to reaffirm that the bourgeoisie
is fundamentally an individualistic class that cannot serve any real
class solidarity but only conspires when it benefits them, but basically
sees each other as competitors and not as teammates.
The
building blocks of corporatism are constructed by incorporating a mass
movement under state control. To do this, fascism must be able to
mobilize discontent among the people. The crisis in society is reflected
in the consciousness of the masses. The masses listen to the voices of
those who are confident. If the communists do not offer answers, they
turn to those who do. Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that the masses are a
battlefield and can thus be driven in the direction of both the
communists and the fascists. To tie back to Maríategui, all discontent
in society can either serve the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, due to
the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. In order to attract the
discontent of the masses into the embrace of the big bourgeoisie, the
fascists need to use rhetoric that appeals to the masses and that can
partially reflect their worldview. But at the same time, the fascists
must use lies to hide the fact that class society and the exploitation
of one class by another are the cause of their problems. Hence, fascism
is philosophically eclectic. It has no principles, but its core is
populist and adaptable to the discontent of the masses.
The European roots of fascism
”Fascism is not a party; it is an army…
a counterrevolutionary army, mobilized against the proletarian
revolution… Their only recourse is violence. Peace for them means
inaction, unemployment.”
– Maríategui 1924 (History of the World Crisis)
When
the crisis of democracy broke out during capitalism’s transition to its
highest stage—imperialism—a process of reactionary transformation of
the whole of society began. This happened at the same time as the First
World War broke out as a war of redistribution between the imperialists
over spheres of interest, colonies, and semi-colonies. The First World
War left large parts of Europe in ruins, which also gave rise to a wave
of proletarian revolutions that rose from the ashes of inter-imperialist
destruction and, for the working class, a betrayal by revisionists,
reformists, and parliamentarians who happily beat the drums of war on
behalf of the bourgeoisie.
These
revolutions became the basis for the formation of the Comintern and a
break with social democracy, but despite this, the revolutions were a
loss in some cases, including in Germany and Hungary. However, these
uprisings had now revealed a frightening reality for the bourgeoisie. The proletarian revolution was now a fact, threatening the survival of capitalism.
In
Italy, no uprising had begun, but the class struggle had developed to
higher stages year after year, and during the 1920s this was mainly
expressed in strikes among the working class, especially in northern
Italy. For workers in the country, the war had brought about a reality
of increased poverty; among other things, the cost of living for a
working-class family had risen by 560% since 1914, despite Italy
emerging as a “victor” with new territories and a larger population.
The
state had difficulty dealing with the increased tensions, and in many
cases neither the police nor the army could prevent the people from
attacking landowners and factory owners. In many cases, workers
established their own councils, similar to previous socialist
revolutions, and occupied land belonging to landowners in rural areas.
This was a direct threat to the power held by the ruling classes in
Italian society, and it was now important for the bourgeoisie to find a
new solution to overthrow the resistance, as the bourgeois state was no
longer sufficient.
The Red Guards occupy a factory, 1920.
The
fascists used revolutionary rhetoric to capture the discontent among
the masses. The National Fascist Party, founded in 1921, declared that
the party would function as ”a revolutionary militia at the service of
the nation. It follows a policy based on three principles: order,
discipline, hierarchy.” They tried to blur class antagonism by promoting
the message of class collaboration in the service of the nation. This
was despite the fact that it had its roots in the syndicalist movement.
The
Blackshirts, officially called the “Voluntary Militia for National
Security,” were formed as the paramilitary wing of the Fascist Party
under the leadership of former syndicalist Benito Mussolini. In its
early days, it was mainly composed of nationalist intellectuals, army
officers, and landowners, who saw the “radical labor movement” as their
greatest enemy. The main funding for their movement came from
capitalists in Italian heavy industry, including Fiat, which later
developed vehicles for the Italian army during World War II. It is clear
that Mussolini succeeded in obtaining this funding precisely because he
promised better conditions for capital owners in Italian industry.
However, the capital linked to industry was the same capital that was
linked to the state-monopolistic faction within the big bourgeoisie.
Initially,
Italian fascism’s economy was a compromise with the liberals, with
Mussolini readily changing his tune to gain popularity and consolidate
his power. In several speeches, he stated, among other things, that “the state must remove its sticky fingers from industry.”
In typical eclectic fashion, Mussolini, in the service of the upper
classes, was able to use the state apparatus to advance industry,
despite his earlier words. As the power of fascism became increasingly
consolidated, state-monopolistic capitalism developed. During the Great
Depression, several private companies were taken over by the state,
which was not always welcomed by the private monopoly capitalist faction
within the upper classes. In 1939, fascist Italy achieved the highest
degree of state ownership of the national economy in the world outside
the Soviet Union. The Italian state “controlled over four-fifths of
Italy’s shipping and shipbuilding industry, three-quarters of its pig
iron production, and almost half of its steel production.”
A
major misconception that is rarely discussed in the mainstream media is
how the fascists got their hold on power. The “March on Rome” is often
cited as some kind of revolution, but in fact this event was more
symbolic in nature. In reality, Mussolini formed a coalition government
together with the liberals, Christian Democrats, and Social Democrats
from Democrazia Sociale. It was this coalition, created in 1922, that
lasted until 1924, when Mussolini finally had his own majority, which
enabled him to abolish bourgeois democracy, entirely within the law and
with the support of the Italian king.
In
addition to attacking the communist movement, they also took on the
role of strike breakers and carried out work while the proletarians were
on strike. However, it was not the fascists who forced the occupations
and strikes to end, but rather this directive came from the reformist
leadership of the Social Democratic Party. Nevertheless, this
demonstrates the recurring elements that give rise to fascism. A
bourgeois state in crisis, threatened by the proletarian revolution. A
retreat by the domestic ruling classes. And, of course, a wavering of
the bourgeois-democratic parties, which often form alliances with the
fascists.
What
we must also understand in our analysis of fascism is that it does not
always take the form of an explicitly fascist party or always take a
stand for racist or other chauvinistic positions. If we look at the
Swedish context, it was rather social democracy that became the leading
force capable of introducing fascism into our country, where it was
precisely the social democrats who led the struggle that resulted in
communists being imprisoned in labor camps.
”Firstly,
it is not true that fascism is only the fighting organisation of the
bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism
is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active
support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the
moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the
fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes
in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of
Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that
Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in
governing the country, without the active support of the fighting
organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do not negate, but
supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Fascism
is an informal political bloc of these two chief organisations; a bloc,
which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism,
and which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The
bourgeoisie cannot retain power without such a bloc. It would therefore
be a mistake to think that “pacifism” signifies the liquidation of
fascism. In the present situation, “pacifism” is the strengthening of
fascism with its moderate, Social-Democratic wing pushed into the
forefront.”
– (Stalin, Concerning the International Situation, 1924)
Otherwise,
fascism has taken many different forms. One of the cornerstones of
fascism is its philosophical eclecticism, which never has any concrete
fixed principles, but can also take shape in the monarchy, as it did to
some extent in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, which also used the church as
a tool for the fascist state. This differed from Germany, which never
showed any interest in reinstating the German monarchy. Racial biology
issues were raised far more by the German fascists than by the Italian
and Spanish fascists, for example. In countries ruled by modern
revisionists, the fascists relied on former workers’ organizations
(communist parties, trade unions, mass organizations, etc.) as organs of
power. In Sweden during the period around World War II, the social
democratic trade unions were used to turn workers into strike breakers.
The roots of the antifascist movement
The
fight against fascism is a long and hard history, which originated
mainly in Italy and Germany in the 1920s. The first explicit
anti-fascist movements emerged in the struggle against Mussolini,
including Arditi Del Popolo, which was founded by socialists and
communists in 1921 and mainly resorted to violent street fighting and
barricades against the fascist black shirts. The fascist state responded
with unprecedented violence, imprisoning and murdering all the leaders
of the group, which led to its demise.
The
struggle in Germany was subsequently developed by the KPD (Communist
Party of Germany), which founded the Roter Frontkämpferbund (RFB) in
1924 as a paramilitary organization focused on recruiting the foremost
class warriors and developing a military structure capable of using
revolutionary violence against its enemies, including the Stormabteilung
(SA), which was the Nazis’ equivalent of a paramilitary organization.
Members from RFB.
The
KPD claimed to be the only consistently anti-fascist force in Germany,
which was further proven when the SPD (Social Democrats) banned the RFB
in 1929 on the grounds that they were a security threat, after they
demonstrated on May 1, 1929, in Berlin, something that was prohibited by
the city’s social democratic police force. This led to several deaths
among the demonstrators.
At
its peak, the RFB had close to 130,000 members, with a composition of
98% working class and only 1-2% highly educated. 53% were party members
of the KPD. In addition to this, youth groups and women’s groups were
also formed within the union to reach out to more sections of the
population.
The
union’s work mainly consisted of providing security and support during
demonstrations, where they collaborated with trade unions to defend
actions from possible fascist attacks. On other occasions, they acted in
defense of workers who were evicted by landlords. Overall, the RFB
became a proletarian organization that was able to “go further” in its
actions, and when revolutionary violence proved successful, the state
did not hesitate to ban the organization.
As
a result of the ban, the KPD also formed the Antifascist Action (AFA)
union, whose memory is still evident today in the continued use of the
organization’s name and symbol in hundreds of modern groups.
The founding of AFA, 1932.
The swedish communists and the antifascist work
A
similar organization was also founded in Sweden in 1930, under the name
Röda Frontförbundet (Red Front Association), also led by the SKP. Like
its German counterpart, the Red Front Federation was intended to act as a
defense organization and as an embryo for the Red Army. In 1931, there
were 15 local groups with up to 1,500 members, and a youth organization
was also formed under the name Antifascist Youth Guard or Antifa. Those
who became members of the organization also had to swear an oath of
loyalty to the class struggle, which read:
”We,
the class-conscious proletarians, swear: to devote all our energies to
the struggle for the liberation of all workers from capitalist
exploitation, oppression, and persecution.
With
iron discipline and the strictest self-control, we submit to all the
orders and directives of the command, which are necessary in the
struggle for the interests of the proletariat.
The
working class’s sharpest contempt and the revolutionary court’s
harshest judgment shall befall anyone who betrays the Red Front or
betrays the interests of the proletariat.
Rise
up, frontline fighters, raise your clenched fists. We swear red.
Victory or death. We devote our lives to the great cause of class
struggle. We are the red pioneers of the new era.
Victory or death, a sacred oath. We shall live or die for you, red banner, symbol of the proletarian dictatorship.”
The association’s newspaper “Arbetarvärnet (Worker’s Guard)” 1933.
These
comrades were expected to form the front line in the class struggle,
which at that time meant physically confronting the police at
demonstrations, attacking stvärnrike breakers, and defending against
fascists. Compared to Germany, the Swedish Nazi movement was more
limited, but this did not stop the union from attacking Nazi events,
including during the Easter riots in Uppsala in 1943, where the police
actively defended the Nazis and attacked anti-fascists with drawn
sabers.
The
Nazis also attempted to attack communists on several occasions,
including the attack on Ny Dag in 1931. On the evening of February 7,
three Nazi youths attempted to enter the premises under the pretext that
they had founded a youth club in Sickla and wanted to meet Hugo Sillén,
who was in the building. When they were welcomed into the premises,
they pulled out revolvers and pointed them at Fritjof Lager, who was
responsible for youth affairs at SKU, but what they did not know was
that Hugo Sillén, Spanish Civil War veteran Knut Olsson, editor Gustaf
Johansson, and worker Lindbeck were in the room next door. Lindbeck had
just been in Chicago, where he had gained experience in fighting the
gangster violence that was attempting to attack the trade unions there.
As a result, he was hardly a man who hesitated to use violence.
Without
firing a single shot, Lindbeck disarmed the Nazis. With one hand, he
twisted the arm of one Nazi out of its socket, then with his other hand
forced the other Nazi to drop the second revolver. Fritjof Lager was no
longer threatened by any revolver, whereupon he struck one of the Nazis,
who reportedly “collapsed like a sack of potatoes.”
The
result of this incident was not any greater condemnation of the Nazis’
violent actions. The three hooligans received only suspended sentences,
and the following years saw only harsher repression against communists
in Sweden. A few years after the incident, Norrskensflamman was also
attacked and unable to defend itself, resulting in five deaths.
The
leadership of the SKP had already been infiltrated by a rightist
faction that would pave the way for social democracy in Sweden through
cooperation after a major election victory in 1944, and it was precisely
this same leadership that did not see the need to further develop the
Red Front Association and its revolutionary potential. The association
was later dissolved in 1933 in an attempt to tone down the revolutionary
image of the SKP. Furthermore, the reaction from the state under the
coalition government was an offensive against the legal rights of
communists. In 1940, among other things, a transport ban on the
communist press was decided, and comrades continued to be victims of
house searches and arrests without evidence. Ny Dag described this
situation succinctly as: “The police dictatorship has prevailed.”
The development of armed resistance during World War II
Throughout
this period, the bourgeois forces were incredibly incompetent when it
came to “fighting fascism.” Often, they were incompetent because they
themselves were trying to develop fascism, while in other cases it was
led by the private faction within the imperialist bourgeoisie, which in
most cases was weaker than the state-monopolistic faction during this
period. Today, all parties seem to claim that they were part of the
anti-fascist resistance, but what did this resistance entail? The only
work they did was parliamentary, which could hardly stop the fascist
forces. In many cases, they collaborated with the fascists in
parliament, precisely in order to limit the work of the communists. As
communists, we know that there are clear reasons for this, since fascism
only functions as a higher stage of the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie.
Once
Nazism had seized power, it was already too late for these legalists
and pacifists to mount any resistance. And subsequently, the main
resistance to the Nazis was of a revolutionary nature. When we see how
war swept across Europe, it is almost impossible to find any kind of
“peaceful” successful action. While some liberal groups spent their time
printing leaflets, the growing partisan movement emerged as the main
resistance to Nazism behind the front lines.
Across
Europe, people took up arms to crush fascism, including in Italy,
Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Poland, France, Albania, and, on a smaller
scale, Norway and Denmark. In both Yugoslavia and Albania, the
partisans succeeded in liberating entire countries and kicking out the
fascists.
Italian Partisans, 1945.
Although
the bourgeois state wants to promote ideas of “peaceful” and “pacifist”
politics within the framework of the law, this particular issue is
something that they can never convey in any other way than to say: The
combined strength and armed struggle of the people throughout the world,
led by the CPSU, is the reason for the defeat of the Nazis in World War
II.
The postwar period
The
defeat of the fascists during the war did not mark the end of their
history. During this period, the economy was able to recover and began
to grow again. This also meant that the reactionary tendencies within
the bourgeois state that characterized the period between the First and
Second World Wars were temporarily reversed. During this period, the
fascists were able to rebrand themselves as democrats and thus regained
prominent positions within the bourgeois state. For example, Adolf
Heusinger, who was elected in 1938 to the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH),
the highest command of the German army in Nazi Germany from 1936 to
1945, later became a lieutenant general in 1955 when West Germany’s
armed forces, the Bundeswehr, were formed. In 1957, he was appointed the
Bundeswehr’s first Inspector General, equivalent to Chief of Defense, a
position he held until 1961. In April 1961, he was appointed chairman
of NATO’s Military Committee in Washington, D.C., and held that position
until 1964. In Sweden, for example, the royal family was able to
continue living as usual despite its obvious support for and connections
to the Nazis during the war. The same applies to monopoly capitalist
families such as the Wallenbergs, who earned large sums of money in the
Nazi economy, or Tage Erlander, who was responsible for imprisoning
communists and class-conscious workers in labor camps and was rewarded
with Sweden’s longest premiership to date, as well as countless others
in the Swedish army, intelligence services, and state bureaucracy, who
continued to climb the career ladder after the war.
During
this period, there was also no need for fascist storm troops. Although
there were large communist parties in Europe that had previously fought
armed struggles, which later turned to revisionism, as well as later
large mass parties guided by Mao Zedong Thought, there were no armed
threats to the bourgeois state apparatus, which made the parties
relatively toothless. The practices of these parties mimicked the
tactics of many parties before World War I, where theories of
accumulation of power were on the agenda, as well as a passion for seats
in parliament, which made the parties harmless and even proof of
“Western democracy” that could let these parties into the fold.
Fascism
emerges with crisis or under the threat of proletarian revolution. The
economic base always shapes the thoughts and ideas that are entrenched
in the superstructure. It is crisis that activates discontent among the
people, which parts of the bourgeoisie try to channel against the people
by building up the fascist movement. It is therefore not surprising
that when imperialism entered its general crisis in 1980, which had its
origins in the stagnation of the 1970s that triggered the so-called
“neoliberal” policy with the dismantling of welfare and outsourcing at
the top of the agenda, various new fascist violent sects began to emerge
on the old continent.
”Neo-fascism”
From
1945 to 1980, the Nazi movement was very limited in Sweden, but it
nevertheless managed to survive, mainly among the upper echelons of the
bourgeoisie and the Swedish nobility. The main organization during this
period was the Nordic Reich Party (NRP). It never had a large membership
and only received around 150 votes in general elections.
However,
something that lives on from this period is the famous photograph of
“The Woman with the Handbag” from 1985, which shows Danuta Danielsson
attacking a Nazi with her handbag. What most people don’t know is the
whole story behind the incident. The NRP had been granted permission to
demonstrate in Växjö but was met with widespread resistance from the
entire city. The VPK had organized a counter-demonstration, which
succeeded in gathering thousands of ordinary Swedes against the Nazis’
small group of only about ten people.
Videos
from the incident show ordinary people—a group of workers, pensioners,
and even people with baby carriages—engaging in direct physical
confrontation with the Nazis and managing to chase them away. One of the
Nazis was even knocked unconscious. Eventually, the Nazis ran all the
way to the train station, where they were forced to seek shelter in the
restrooms.
Once
again, people took to the streets to show their anger and contempt for
Nazism. This event proves once again that the main tool against fascism
is not open peaceful debate with these scumbags. The only language these
Nazis speak is violence, and when people use violence, the Nazis’ only
choice is to run away.
Link to a video from the confrontation: Sweden: Fight between the Communist party and nazis -1985
However,
by the 1990s, fascism began to grow stronger again in Sweden. This
period saw two major groups in particular pose a real threat: the White
Aryan Resistance (VAM) and later the National Socialist Front (NSF).
VAM
was mainly present among a growing scene of boneheads (an alleged
offshoot of skinheads) and attempted to build a subculture around white
power music. They followed a global trend of using skinhead culture to
recruit members to their Nazi organizations. These organizations existed
all over the world and increasingly used violence against anti-fascists
and others they saw as enemies. In several countries, these groups
became outright terrorist organizations that indiscriminately murdered
innocent people, mainly immigrants but also left-wing activists. One
example is the NSU group in Germany.
VAM in Göteborg, 1992.
In
Sweden, VAM was the first group of this type to become relevant, and
carried out several bomb threats against public places, including Åhléns
and Arlanda. In addition, they were present at several street fights
during the 1990s, often side by side with the Sweden Democrats. However,
VAM did not become a long-lasting organization, but began to fall apart
after its leaders were convicted of crimes and chose to end their
activities in 1993.
NSF
was founded in 1994 in Karlskrona, inspired by VAM. This organization
grew relatively large and was not only active on the streets, but also
chose to arm itself in preparation for “the coming race war.” On several
occasions, they looted weapons depots belonging to both the Swedish
Armed Forces and the police. These weapons were later used to commit
several robberies, including the famous case in Malexander, where three
Nazis from NSF robbed a bank of 2.6 million kronor and later fled from
the police. When they came to a stop, one of the Nazis shot the two
police officers who fell down, later executing them with shots to the
neck. These men were all sentenced to life imprisonment.
This
period thus points to a Nazi movement that was increasingly violent and
did not hesitate to commit murder. According to Expo, 48 people were
murdered as a result of Nazi violence between 1983 and 2019.
NSF in Jönköping, 2005.
One
of the more well-known cases of Nazi violence was the murder of trade
unionist Björn Söderberg in 1999. Björn was a member of SAC and had
exposed Robert Vesterlund as a Nazi while he was on the board of the
Handels trade union at his workplace. After the information came out,
Robert was removed from his position and resigned from his job. The
following month, three Nazis began threatening Björn over the phone, and
eventually went to his home with a gun, where they confronted Björn and
shot him several times. The incident led to large demonstrations with
up to 20,000 people in Stockholm. In memory of Björn Söderberg, the
Civil Courage Award is still presented to trade union heroes today.
What means shall we employ?
Something
that distinguishes the growing anti-fascist movement in Sweden during
this period is its political base. The earlier anti-fascist movement
during the interwar period and World War II was essentially always led
by the communist parties affiliated with the Comintern. Anti-fascism was
always part of the many tasks carried out by the Communist parties and
was fought for the purpose of seizing power in their own countries or
defending what was at that time the world’s only socialist state. These
organizations had a clear understanding of what fascism is, and with
this analysis, they could see the clear truth that the bourgeois
state was always the main enemy, and it was only through the state that
fascism developed and was unleashed as a weapon against the proletarian
movement.
Without a communist party, a spontaneous anti-fascist movement emerged. The spontaneous movement, as Lenin teaches us in What Is To Be Done?
(1902) and as history has proven, is never able to unite the
spontaneous struggle into a struggle for political power. This requires
that the struggle serve a greater goal than the one immediately at hand,
and ultimately serve to build a force capable of tearing down the old
state and building a new one. This requires a conscious force, willing,
principled, and capable of building this movement—a communist party.
Without
communist leadership, its spontaneous movements will at best be radical
petty-bourgeois movements, regardless of the class of the participants
in the movement, because it does not serve the class interests of the
proletariat to put an end to a society based on exploitation. At best,
these movements can make capitalism more tolerable by chasing away a few
Nazi pigs, but in doing so they only serve to preserve society as it is
and do the work of the bourgeois democrats for them.
The
growing autonomous movement in Sweden led to the founding of
Antifascist Action, which also followed a global trend of growing
anti-fascist resistance without communist leadership. One of the first
major battles took place in Lund in 1991. November 30 is known as the
celebration of the “warrior king” Charles XII, and commemorative
celebrations had been held at his statue since the 1880s. But during the
1980s, the commemoration took on an increasingly fascist character, and
a sight that became more and more common was the Nazi flags that
adorned the streets of Lund. A number of activists then decided to
prevent these Nazis from coming to the city, and in 1991 this culminated
in incredibly large counter-demonstrations with a united front of
anti-fascists who refused to let the Nazis march through the city. The
counter-demonstrations continued every year until the Nazis simply
stopped holding the march.
Antifascist counter-demonstration in Lund, 1991.
On
November 30, the Nazis attempted to establish a holiday where they
could gather forces and parade through cities, including Stockholm. But
the collective resistance of the people forced the Nazis to retreat for
fear of being beaten and stopped. Something that reflects these large
demonstrations is the fact that the Nazis rarely gathered more than 100
people, while anti-fascists gathered thousands. It is in this climate
that anti-fascism gained greater attention. On this particular issue,
two groups emerged as more radical and successful, offering important
experiences, both good and bad, as well as many lessons for communists
and revolutionaries.
Antifascistisk Aktion
AFA
developed into a nationwide organization in 1993 and began to take up
the fight against fascists in new ways. In addition to using traditional
methods such as putting up posters and distributing flyers, it also
built up an intelligence structure to map fascist organizations and
their members. Among other things, it managed to hack the website of the
Nazi publishing house Nordiska Förlaget in 2004 and gained access to a
customer register of 1,500 people and secret plans for a new
organization. They continued to expose frequently identified Nazis in an
attempt to raise public awareness and inform their workplaces that
these individuals were organized Nazis. A similar attack was carried out
against the Midgård publishing house in 2023, where the customer
register was also published for the general public, which was also used
by anti-fascists globally.
In
addition to intelligence work, there was always a strong emphasis on
violence as a tool against Nazism. From 1993 to 2012, there were
numerous violent confrontations not only against Nazis, but also against
Christian Democrats and the Migration Agency. Some of these actions
include:
- Arson attack on EU election booths during the 1994 vote
- Riots and stone throwing against Nazis in Trollhättan in 1996
- Arson attack on the National Alliance’s office in 1996
- Riots and stone throwing against Nazis in Linköping in 1997
- Large-scale brawl against Nazis in Gävle on New Year’s Eve 2000
- Arson attack against the NSF headquarters in 2005, which was classified as murder by arson
- Attack against the SD’s National Day celebrations in 2006 in Växjö, armed with baseball bats
- Vandalism of the Christian Democrats’ premises in Kalmar for their “anti-worker attacks” in 2006
- Axe attack on a judge in the Migration Agency in Gothenburg in 2007
- Postering
and exposure of a Nazi in Uppsala, where 500 kronor and a free knuckle
duster were offered to anyone who managed to assault the named Nazi.
- Assault on a National Democratic politician in Hagsätra in 2009, which was classified as attempted murder
- Participation in the Rosengård riots in 2009.
For
the first time, the movement succeeded in countering Nazi violence by
launching its own offensive against the fascist movement. This led
several of the victims to seek empathy in the mass media, and most media
outlets now began to focus on condemning this violence, instead seeking
“consensus and dialogue” with these Nazis.
Due
to its tendency to use violence, AFA also became a focus for SÄPO,
which investigated and probably attempted to infiltrate the
organization. In several reports, SÄPO mentions their organization as a
leader in the autonomous movement and that AFA actively maps and attacks
people from the white power movement and even politicians within the
Sweden Democrats. The fear and hatred of AFA lives on among the Sweden
Democrats to this day, and Charlie Weimers has even proposed that AFA be
classified as a terrorist organization, similar to what Trump has done
in the United States.
Material confiscated from an antifascist by the police in Malmö, 1994.
Revolutionära Fronten
Something
that permeated the entire so-called left during this period was a kind
of subculture, where one’s individual lifestyle was often placed as an
important focus, sometimes weighing more heavily than one’s actual
practice. This was strongly criticized by those who went on to found the
Revolutionary Front (RF), who themselves came from backgrounds in the
suburbs around the major cities.
The
culture that existed among many left-wing groups was seen as elitist
and petty bourgeois, isolating and excluding many who came from a
proletarian background. Because of this, it was considered necessary to
build a new organization from the ground up, with roots in the suburbs
and also in football communities.
AFA
was not seen as capable of going all the way, and RF began its work by
trying to build up a greater capacity for violence than any other
left-wing group had done before. However, the group functioned primarily
as a “buddy group” and did not focus much on expanding to other cities,
but rather remained limited to Örebro and Gothenburg in its early days.
Rapper Sebbe Staxx from the group Kartellen together with RF, 2013.
However,
the organization matured over the years and new branches were opened in
Stockholm, among other places. A sense of discipline was built up among
members, who now dared to take on the Nazis even when they were
outnumbered. Word of the RF’s strength began to spread, and they gained a
certain popularity among the rest of the left, who now actively sought
out the RF to ask them to act as security at demonstrations.
However,
the political level was not a priority, and the organization had a
relatively low level of unity on ideological/political issues. There was
no significant work on studying, and political discussions took place
mainly informally, with the departments differing in their ideological
positions. Of course, the majority were active in other projects on the
side, where politics took up more space. However, three points of unity
were put forward: socialism, internationalism, and anti-fascism.
The
RF carried out a wide range of activities, including joint training
sessions, soccer tournaments, and other sporting events. It seems to
have continued to be centered around groups of friends who were very
close to each other and had a very strong loyalty that is not always
found in the political environment. RF was also active in participating
in trade union blockades against several workplaces and also
participated in a number of house occupations around Sweden.
Baseball tournament, early 2000s
Violent
confrontations with Nazis were nothing new in Sweden, but RF undeniably
took it a step further during its lifetime. Through its website, it
filmed attacks targeting individual Nazis, including breaking into their
homes and vandalizing entire properties. Other times, they confronted
Nazis on the street and went straight to attack, often armed with
weapons.
With
advanced media knowledge, these videos were published and later spread
throughout Sweden, even being shown on television during prime time. The
conservative press tried to paint a picture of violent hooligans
attacking innocent people, and relatively often failed to mention that
the individuals they attacked were organized Nazis. At the same time,
this became a great inspiration for ordinary people across the country,
especially among young people from the suburbs.
The
old revisionists began to criticize RF, arguing that they simply went
too far in their methods and that they had no right to challenge the
state’s monopoly on violence. Among others, Jonas Wikström wrote the
following in Flamman in 2014:
”The
problem with violence is that it appeals on a completely different
level than the rational one: it gives a feeling of “doing something.”
And you get that if you skip the tough class struggle and go straight
for the symptoms—the autonomists are thus a kind of upside-down left
wing. This is also evident in their uncomfortably harsh view of the
often young boys who make up the groups of Nazis and racists. As if, in
this particular case, there were no social circumstances, only a black
hole of evil.”
Instead,
the parliamentary parties believed that dissatisfaction with racism
should be demonstrated by “turning one’s back” on the SD, and in
certain, more confrontational situations, by “rattling one’s keys.”
Municipal politicians from V and C “turn their backs” to SD, 2014.
Despite
everything, RF received an incredible amount of attention, further in a
report from Uppdrag Granskning in 2014 and also in a documentary from
American Vice in 2014, which has received millions of views.
Link to the Vice documentary: The Rise Of Sweden’s Far-Left Militants
Actions carried out by RF.
This
method of searching for Nazis everywhere, even in their own homes, led
to widespread fear among the organized Nazi movement. The largest Nazi
organization at the time, the Swedish Party (formerly NSF), was so
affected by the fear among its own members that the party chose to
disband in 2015, citing a “lack of membership.”
However,
the consequence of this militant anti-fascism was a repression much
stronger than we had seen in a long time. Most members were convicted in
major trials over the years. One of the more famous cases involved a
member who defended a demonstration march in Kärrtorp in 2013, when he
stabbed one of the Nazis who had tried to throw glass bottles at the
peaceful march. He was sentenced to 6 years and 6 months in prison, but
then became the subject of a broad campaign for his freedom across
Europe.
In
November of the same year, the police also launched “Operation Eskil,”
which involved raiding several RF members, confiscating materials, and
arresting eight people. The police brought along reporters from
Aftonbladet who were present during the raids to film and photograph the
arrests in an attempt to further discredit the organization.
In
conversations with members of the movement, several stated that the
harsh repression was a major reason for their closure in 2015. After SVP
announced its closure, RF also began to consider closing down. In
September, a post was published on their Facebook page informing about
the closure.
RF
was outwardly a more radical version of AFA, but its political content
was the same. The enemy, as formulated in both theory and practice,
continued to be “the fascists”; no struggle was waged against the
bourgeois state or its other political tools, such as the liberal,
reformist, and revisionist parties. This meant that even though RF waged
a more intense struggle against fascist gangs and mobilized more
proletarian elements than AFA managed to do, the struggle against the
imperialist system and its apparatus of violence in Sweden—the bourgeois
state—was not waged. In addition, ideological/political development was
neglected, which meant that it was unable to build an organization that
could cope with increased reactionary forces.
Both
RF and AFA once again highlight the importance of carrying out the
communists’ main task of reconstituting the Communist Party. This party
must understand the class struggle in Sweden, its balance of power,
which masses it should appeal to, which struggles can be transformed
into armed struggle to initiate a revolutionary war, a war of the
masses, a people’s war against the bourgeois state, and build a new
power in its vacuum. All struggles that remain within the framework of
the system only prolong its life. Even if the struggle is illegal and
uses violence, its content remains system-preserving because it does not
target the core of the bourgeois dictatorship—its state apparatus and
armed forces.
At
the same time, it is important never to throw the baby out with the
bathwater. Both AFA and RF show how it is possible to mobilize the
masses for armed confrontations and actions, how it is possible to build
up illegal apparatus in an imperialist country like Sweden, they offer
many valuable military maneuvers and show how the people themselves can
build up large and effective intelligence operations.
The situation today?
The
bourgeois state and its parties always condemned anti-fascist violence
and often portrayed anti-fascists as “the real threat.” Today, bourgeois
politicians and self-appointed experts argue that “left-wing violence”
is worse than “right-wing violence,” especially violence from the
Palestinian movement, which over time has become increasingly passive
and peaceful in its actions, with the aim of increasing repression
against its opponents.
The
general crisis in the world is worsening day by day with the process of
imperialist decay, where the exploitation of the working people is
constantly increasing, reactionary forces are intensifying, and
militarization is escalating in preparation for a coming imperialist war
of redistribution. All this has an impact on social consciousness.
Without a conscious force, fascists will win over large sections of the
masses with their “criticism of the system,” and it is therefore
inevitable that so-called “right-wing extremist violence” will become
more and more commonplace.
While
everything has been done to pacify the anti-fascist movement, the Nazis
have grown stronger. Some believed that the Nazis were defeated when
the Swedes’ Party was dissolved in 2015, but as Marxists, we know that
these movements are expressed in ideas born out of material conditions
that live on and are not only expressed in a few small organizations.
Today,
there are a number of “far-right” organizations in Sweden, which are
largely much weaker than before, but at the same time, a new type of
fascist organization is emerging, mainly among Aktiv Klubb. Like the
subcultural bonehead movement, Aktiv Klubb is part of a global network
of Nazis who collaborate with each other and seem to focus primarily on
training for future confrontations with their “enemies.” Last year’s
attack in Gubbängen can probably only be seen as a starting point for
this movement’s future goals. With discreet ties to the government, this
organization is yet another attempt to attack the growing communist
movement. These scumbags will not hesitate to attack people when they
get their chance, and at a time when we lack an anti-fascist movement
with a similar capacity for violence, the situation will only get worse.
However,
we must not fall into the trap of seeing only these small groups as the
fascist movement. These vandals are merely foot soldiers for the
bourgeoisie’s fighting organization. While they do the dirty work
through physical confrontations, it is the parliamentary parties that
pave the way for fascism within the state apparatus.
Yes,
the establishment of fascism as a form of government is not a question
of “if” it will happen, but a question of when. With a united cross-bloc
line, the question remains: Who will carry out this reactionary shift?
Will it ultimately be the Sweden Democrats who, like Mussolini, succeed
in “tricking” the bourgeois and liberal parties into a coalition
government, or will it once again be the Social Democrats, possibly with
support from the Left Party, who become the leading force in curbing
the proletarian class struggle? We will discuss this in future articles.
What is revolutionary violence?
Revolutionary violence is not just any kind of violence. Marx said that “violence is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.”
Revolutionary violence is thus the means by which progressive forces
change the world. Lenin stated that “the replacement of the bourgeois
state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent
revolution.” This means that revolutionary violence must be directed
against the bourgeois state. Mao Zedong continued, stating that “the
central task and highest form of revolution is the seizure of power by
armed force, the resolution of disputes by means of war. This
Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution applies universally, to China
and to all other countries.” Thus, violence must be prepared to be
resolved through war, which means the need for extremely disciplined
organization and determination. This requires, since the enemy is strong
and we are weak, that we must rely on the masses, who are the majority
and who will benefit from the change, and incorporate them into the
revolutionary war.
Revolutionary
violence must serve the goal of building a new society and must
therefore be directed against the old state with the aim of destroying
it and establishing a new monopoly on violence. The fundamental
difference between revolutionary violence and violence in general is
whether it serves the proletariat’s struggle for political power, for
the dictatorship of the proletariat based on an armed force led by the
Communist Party.
The
bourgeoisie’s class interest is to preserve the current imperialist
world order and consolidate private property and wage slavery for all
time. In other words, the workers want to liberate humanity from all
forms of oppression and exploitation, while the bourgeoisie wants to
consolidate a system in which a few live like parasites on the masses.
The working class is therefore fighting a war to advance humanity toward
a realm of abundance, while the bourgeoisie is fighting its war to
preserve the rotten existing order.
By
committing violence that does not threaten, or even have the intention
of threatening, the foundations of the old society, it thus becomes a
violence that preserves the current imperialist world order, where
private property, wage slavery, and imperialist wars continue.
To
carry out violence only against one faction of the bourgeoisie, the
fascist part, and to reconcile with the bourgeois democratic part, turns
violence into bourgeois democratic violence that defends the interests
of one faction of the bourgeoisie and serves its purposes. To use
violence only against fascist violent sects and not against the
bourgeois state apparatus does not mean that the violence is
revolutionary, but rather that it serves to legitimize the current order
and makes capitalism more “tolerable.” The idea spread to the masses is
that the fascists are bad, but the other bourgeois politicians are
tolerable and can therefore be reconciled with.
What is required by the antifascist struggle?
By
analyzing fascism, understanding its character and essence, we
understand that the only way to avoid a new Nazi Germany is through
revolution. In other words, the struggle against the bourgeois state
system, that is, against the state, is the only method for removing this
cancer from humanity. Turning the gun on its useful idiots, its
pathetic stormtroopers, is like bailing water out of a boat with a hole
in the hull; it only alleviates the symptoms but does not solve the
cause.
The
fundamental issue in proletarian ideology is the question of political
power, and thus only the struggle for political power can resolve this
issue. This can only be achieved through revolutionary violence. Whether
violence is revolutionary or not depends on who you direct it against.
The same applies to the sailors on the sinking boat. The only
problem-solving approach is to try to fix the cause of the sinking by
repairing the hull, and no matter how good the intentions of the sailors
bailing water out of the boat may be, they are not part of the
problem-solving force and are therefore a useful tool for those who want
to see the boat sink to the bottom of the sea.
The
so-called anti-fascist movement arises spontaneously, and it is
important to transform its insight—that fascism must be fought with
violence—into consciousness: that fascism is only an expression of
bourgeois dictatorship and that it is this dictatorship that must be
crushed in order to guarantee a world without oppression, which can only
be done through the establishment of a new state, which crushes the old
one, under the leadership of a communist party. This highlights the
need to build a communist platform that can spread awareness among all
progressive elements and organize them to serve the process of
reconstituting the Communist Party of Sweden. This is the work that Kommunistiska Föreningen has undertaken to accomplish.
Kontakta oss via Kommunisten@riseup.net!
