Excerpts from “Combat This Growing Fascism,” a speech given by Comrade Hardial Bains in Montreal, April 1970.
In answering the question: “Whom do we serve?” we must answer the question “How do we serve?” The big bourgeoisie contends that there is no other ideology than the ideology of counter-revolution and we must smash them by… going deep into the masses and integrating with them.
In resolutely opposing the ideology of the big bourgeoisie, we have always opposed its concrete manifestations. There are two basic methods of looking at the problem:
1. Look at the problem in order to describe it, and
2. Look at the problem in order to solve it.
During the past year and more, several comrades have raised the question: “What is fascism?” and they have attempted to answer this question. They have read several books, made comments on the terrorist states of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo and have arrived at simple conclusions: At a certain stage of the development of the revolutionary initiative of the working class, the big bourgeoisie brings into being open terror of capital against labour. After arriving at this conclusion, it naturally follows that nobody in their right mind can say that the Canadian monopoly capitalist state is a fascist state. Two basic errors are committed in so doing:
1. The classic formulation by Georgi Dimitrov that:
Fascism is the most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people;
Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and annexationist war;
Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution;
Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and all working people!
won’t suffice for the present day because while the general formulation is correct, it is devoid of all practicality. It is an abstraction which is applicable in general but leads us nowhere in terms of actually fighting fascism. Thus, for our purposes, we say that it won’t do at all to be satisfied with this general formulation. Those who are satisfied with just “understanding” are not anti-fascists or revolutionaries yet.
2. The second error made is in terms of looking at the bourgeois state and the problems of revolution as abstractions only, and not based on actually summing up the experience of the masses.
These two basic errors do not lead to the development of fighting programs against fascism but, instead, divert the attention of the masses from the real problem. These comrades exhibit a high degree of intellectualism and subjectivism because they, unwittingly, support what they profess to oppose. Our experience has shown that the big bourgeoisie would and, in fact, does encourage discussion only when it is merely a discussion divorced from the problems of the masses. Our point of departure with these comrades is:
1. We advocate Organise to Change the World! In the process of changing the world, we will understand the world better,… which means learning through actually changing the material conditions. Our learning of fascism is also through developing anti-fascist struggles in close contact with workers, farmers, students and small businessmen.
2. We advocate study only when we “have specific problems in mind”… as a guide to action.
These comrades have raised several objections against this method. They insist on the “necessity of knowing the history,” “going into details,” “learning what actually did take place,” etc. But they are completely mistaken about this point also. Because, learning away from the struggle of the masses is abstract learning, a dead and woody, sterile and putrid knowledge which is of no use to the broad masses of the workers and peasants and it does not reflect their true experience. True knowledge can only be knowledge gained by the masses of workers, peasants and intellectuals in their three revolutionary struggles: class struggle, struggle for production and scientific investigation.
To correctly handle the problems posed by our comrades, we insist on developing class struggle on the question of method. The question of method is the key question and, in fact, is the deciding factor in whether we will oppose imperialism, fascism and revisionism or we ourselves will degenerate and become decadent forces.
The fascist method mainly consists of:
1. Building abstract, medieval notions about the state, country, people, race, history, law and order, culture, human nature, etc.
2. Proving these abstract notions through pure speculation, etc. which means a purely non-scientific method.
This method, in essence, means (1) concoct “facts” in order to (2) “prove truth” as opposed to seeking truth from facts. The two methods are in constant struggle. In the fascist method, the fascists mainly rely on “experts” to develop anti-working class, anti-people and anti-progressive theories as well as to develop practical plans to smash the working class, to commit genocide against the people and to attempt to stop the forward march of history. In the name of the working class, these fascists build anti-working class, anti-people, anti-progressive, black terror. The fascists contend that the broad masses of the people are ignorant, incapable of understanding, need help, and thus require experts from the superior race to do what is good. They say the broad masses of the people do not understand what is good for themselves, etc. In the proletarian method of work, the main force is the working people, the core of which is the industrial proletariat, which rallies around itself the rural and urban petty bourgeois. The proletarian method holds that “people and people alone are the makers of world history”, that they are the rich source of knowledge and that in order to gain this knowledge we must integrate with them and learn from them.
The fascist method necessarily depends on “experts”, learning from books and going away from the masses, and relying on mysticism, etc. The proletarian method necessarily begins with integration with the masses. We ourselves, when we were isolated from the masses, learned mainly from books and understood nothing. When we were faced with the oppression of the imperialist culture, in which we were forced to live like the imperialists, i.e. completely decadent, we looked for answers. And the answer to our problems was integration with the workers.
The fascist and non-scientific line is the line of the bourgeoisie hidden amongst the people. They describe the problem in order to build roadblocks in front of the revolution. The line is based on: Seek facts in order to prove preconceived notions. This line usually gave rise to the “convince me first line.” This means that communist revolutionaries must not organise to change the world but organise to “answer” various “questions or objections” put forward by the bourgeoisie. In other words, this attitude leads to passive acceptance of the bourgeoisie and active opposition to revolution.
The scientific line is the line of the working class. Being the most practical and scientific class in history, the working class describes the world only to change it. They have an active attitude towards solving various problems and they eliminate roadblocks set by the bourgeois line. This meant resolving contradictions amongst the people on the non-antagonistic level by actively opposing the bourgeoisie.
These two lines came into sharp struggle within our revolutionary ranks right from the beginning and developed into an active struggle against bourgeois hang-ups. Struggle against bourgeois hang-ups was necessarily a struggle between the interests of the working class and those of the bourgeoisie. In Canada and Quebec as well as in the USA, the salient features of all previous movements has been their primary emphasis on subjectivism and intellectualism and thus they acted as counter-revolutionary movements. We, right from the beginning, opposed subjectivism and intellectualism, opposed division between private and public and demanded that the theory and practice of all who proclaim themselves to be revolutionary must be integrated. In this way, we sharpened the contradiction between the bourgeois and the proletarians and actively opposed the counter-revolutionary influence in our ranks.
We also showed the living connection between one’s social practice and one’s consciousness and pointed out that communist revolutionaries should pay special attention to their social form. In this way, we linked the subjective transformation of the individual cadre with the objective development of revolutionary struggle. To begin, we must oppose all that is bourgeois and is holding the revolutionary struggle back and, in order to continue the struggle, we must sum up the experience, build future guidelines and practise criticism-self-criticism.