Once Again, On the Revolutionary Proletarian Strategy against Fascism
Let us begin by apologizing for publishing the seventh issue of The Anvil with such delay. We have been getting letters and calls enquiring about the date of publishing of the next issue. Finally, we are here with the seventh issue and we are grateful that our readers have been so patient. The delay was caused by a variety of factors including the Covid, the exigencies of the revolutionary practice, and partly our lack of discipline. We undertake self-criticism for our lack of discipline and work culture. We can only commit and promise that in the future we will be much more regular, as the present time demands.
The past one year and four months have seen the further advance of the fascist rise in India. The fascist state has become much more repressive, much more openly dictatorial and much more vitriolic and rabid in its communal fascist propaganda. The voices of opposition within the bourgeois parliament and bourgeois politics in general, too, are not spared anymore, which is a characteristic of any fascist regime. The repression of masses, people’s movements and voices of dissent from the progressive individuals are being crushed as before, or rather, with greater aggression.
The past one year has further witnessed the sheer hopelessness of the liberal-left/left-liberal opposition to fascist regime of Modi-Shah. They are still harping on their nostalgic yearning for a return to ‘Nehruvian socialism’, humanism, sarva dharma samabhaav, etc. The liberals are singing the old tunes of ‘tolerance’, ‘love’, etc. The fascists, of course, are ecstatic seeing this political circus of a shabby motley crew. They understand that such opposition is sterile and they need not be afraid of them. The only concern that is troubling them is the economic crisis and its impact in the from of rising unemployment and inflation. That is something that stems mainly from the very dynamics of capitalist system and the resultant social discontent and anger might unsettle the current dispensation. However, the social discontent and anger in a scattered and unorganized form too, can be managed and circumscribed by some reactionary bourgeois politics and often it does happen. In our case, it is fascism and right-wing populism of the likes of the AAP.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY), the brain-child of ‘the forces of eternal and permanent opposition’ within the ambit of bourgeois politics, namely, the socialists like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, created quite a ripple among the pessimist liberals and left-liberals and even some so-called Marxists! Some of them even participated in the yatra and carried out photo-ops. The euphoria of certain sections of the democratic and left intelligentsia due to the Bharat Jodo Yatra, too, is misplaced. It is true that Rahul Gandhi worked hard to prove his mettle as a bourgeois politician and leader, walked almost 3000 kms, attacked the Modi government on issues that are undoubtedly essential and real; there is no doubt that the yatra rattled the Modi-Shah regime and the RSS as well as the BJP. For the first time in 9 years of Modi’s rule, the terms of discourse were being set by the Congress and Modi regime and the BJP were responding. First of all, as realists, communists should register what is happening in a realistic fashion, rather than shrugging off the reality itself. Only then we can undertake a concrete analysis of concrete conditions. Within the limits posed by the game of bourgeois politics, it was the first time that Rahul Gandhi challenged the BJP and Modi regime in a real meaningful way. The BJY was partially successful in galvanizing some of the social discontent that has been brewing against the Modi regime. One cannot simply say that the yatra was only participated by Congress workers, liberals and ‘progressives’. Yes, there was a large chunk of such forces but there was also participation from various elements from among the masses who are looking for a political alternative, who are angry, who are yearning for an outlet to vent their frustration and anger and participated in the yatra even if some of them do not fully trust the ability of Congress to defeat Modi-Shah duo in the coming elections.
However, BJY functions as a mechanism that is part of the overall ideological hegemony of the bourgeoisie. No wonder that it was the brain-child of socialists like Yadav and Bhushan. The socialists in India have time and again played the role of saving the capitalist system and that of the far-sighted watchmen of the system. Be it Lohia in the 1950s and 1960s or the JP movement in 1970s. Whenever the public anger, discontent and dissatisfaction had the risk of becoming politicized in a radical fashion, these saviours of the system surfaced with ostensibly even more radical slogans and rhetoric like sampoorna kranti (total revolution). The BJY also used terms such as ‘capitalists’, ‘toil of the workers’, etc. However, it never questioned the very system of capitalism, focusing its attack on the so-called ‘crony capitalism’ that serves only ‘few capitalists’, who are ‘friends of Modi’. The unsaid of this ideological stance is that there can be a capitalism which is good, which allows all capitalists equally to do business (exploit the working class – again, the unsaid of the ideology). In the lack of any alternative, many common working people also flocked to join BJY when it passed from their region. The reason was the deeply-felt need to vent their anger and express their angst.
The terminology of humanism like ‘love’, ‘brotherhood’, etc. the time for which has passed almost 150 years ago, when the progressive capitalism became exhausted of all its progressive potential, has been revived again to fight off the Modi-Shah regime. However, for them too, the BJY had only love! Because the pyaar ki dukaan (shop of love) was to be opened in the nafrat ka bazaar (market of hatred)! The whole metaphor itself is commercial and bourgeois, which appeals to the petty-bourgeois sensibilities as well as workers who are still imprisoned in the spontaneous bourgeois or petty-bourgeois ideology. Mr. Gandhi said that every citizen should take a franchise of this ‘shop of love’ in their respective areas! Thus, the BJY had nothing to offer to fight against fascism, except the old, outdated, anachronistic calls for ‘love’, ‘humanism’, ‘insaniyat’, ‘liberty’, etc. that too in a metaphor reminiscent of bourgeois and commercial values and ethics, of selling and buying.
Even in terms of fighting communal propaganda, Rahul Gandhi did not transcend the limits of sarva dharma samabhaav and placating the communal Hindu feelings through devices of visiting temples, showing janeu (the Hindu sacred threat worn by caste Hindus), besides, of course, visiting some dargahs of sufi saints (visiting a mosque would have been too much!).
However, all the veneer of ideology of BJY is shattered once you ask: what is the economic program proposed by Rahul Gandhi? What is the political program proposed by Rahul Gandhi? The economic program of Rahul Gandhi is revealed during his interview by Raghuram Rajan, a darling of “saner minds” of the big bourgeoisie. Rahul Gandhi refers to China a lot and argues that in order for India to become the leader of Asia and the world, it must become the manufactory of the world, as China has become. Only then India can surpass China in economic might and political clout. What is to be done? Yes, implement the Chinese model in the peculiar Indian way! Does Mr. Gandhi know what is this Chinese economic model that came into being after the collapse of socialism in 1976? We doubt. It is a social fascist model based on brutal methods of labour control, repressive measures, no democratic rights for workers, overworking to the detriment of one’s physical health and mental health, naked dictatorship of corporate capital. If that is something that Mr. Gandhi wants to replicate when he comes to power, why take so much pain of replacing Mr. Modi, who is already doing it in his own classical fascist way? Rahul Gandhi makes it very clear (so that there is no confusion or haze about it!) that he is not against capitalists and capitalism. He is only against corrupt and crony capitalism! Defending Adani’s investment in Rajasthan which is ruled by Gehlot’s Congress government, Mr. Gandhi blatantly asked “how can a state government decline such a large investment?” Then, what is wrong with Modi’s regime? Only that only a small coterie of Gujarati businessmen are being allowed to loot and plunder the labour and nature in this country on a priority basis, though this claim too is not wholly true. Even the Tatas and Birlas are broadly satisfied and content with the anti-labour policies of Modi government. Thus, the real slogan of the BJY is: “equality of opportunity of exploiting workers for all capitalists!” Nevertheless, Mr. Gandhi would do good to remember that Ambani and Adani began to build their empires during the regimes of Congress and with equally Macheathian ways (Macheath is a character from Brecht’s ‘The Threepenny Opera’ and ‘The Threepenny Novel’ who is devoid of all morality in his pursuit for power and profit)!
Mr. Gandhi is trying to strike a chord with the bourgeoisie of India in general by making this statement, because even within the bourgeoisie there are, as a matter of rule, competing blocs. In fact, the bourgeoisie is constituted as a class only through competition, through the averaging of the rates of profit and it is from this basis that their ‘hostile brotherhood’ emerges, as Marx aptly pointed out. However, the problem is that in the period of ongoing long depression, despite also funding the BJY, the bourgeoisie is more inclined to give the top spot to Modi, who has established his better credentials as the “strong leader” who can suppress all voices of dissent with iron hand and allow free rein to the capitalists to exploit and loot the working class and working masses. Mr. Gandhi has a Herculean task ahead of him: to convince the bourgeoisie that he is more suited for the job of running the managing committee of the bourgeoisie, even in the period of crisis, by ensuring lasting truce in the domestic class struggle and preventing a constant state of warfare between the classes, whether they take the progressive form of radical mass movements or the reactionary form of riots and communal clashes which result precisely due to the right-wing/fascist misarticulation of the class contradictions and construction of an ‘imaginary enemy’.
The second target of BJY was to lure the small and middle capitalist class towards Congress who is not happy with the ruination or uprooting brought about by the onslaught of domestic and foreign big capital, often in collaboration, which has picked up speed especially since 2014. This class includes the agrarian bourgeoisie too, that is, the rich owner and tenant capitalist farmers and kulaks. Of course, the rich capitalist farmers and kulaks, especially of Punjab and Haryana, are extremely angry with the Modi government for the agricultural laws that were introduced and then repealed due to the movement led by the agrarian bourgeoisie, for the agrarian bourgeoisie but was participated also by masses of middle and lower-middle farmers and a part of agricultural proletariat too, though the latter participated mostly due to their economic liabilities to the rich farmers and kulaks and obligation imposed on them by the village panchayats which are dominated by the Jatt and Jaat big farmers and landlords in Punjab and Haryana. Mr. Gandhi made a clear call to this class of urban and rural, industrial and agrarian middle and small bourgeoisie that he will save them from the onslaught of big corporate capital; he will provide them with a shelter from the scorching heat of competition through subsidies, ‘ease of doing business’, freedom from various duties and taxes, etc. Again, that is a promise, which can be fulfilled only symbolically by any bourgeois government in the era of persistent crisis of profitability and the bourgeois necessity of the neoliberal solution.
However, winning over this class of small the middle bourgeoisie too is not a cakewalk for Mr. Gandhi. Why? For the simple reason that the relative weight of this class’s hatred and disdain towards the working class and poor toilers is much more than their fear of being uprooted by the big capital. And they know that in order to keep the workers and the poor “in their place”, “to keep them disciplined” and “to keep them in line”, there is no better candidate than Modi at present. That is why, they have a bittersweet relation or a love-hate relation, as it were, with Modi-Shah duo and the BJP government. RSS, they love due to a variety of reasons, for instance, their patriarchal mindset, petty-bourgeois jingoist feelings and general chauvinism and reaction! The rich capitalist farmers of Punjab are an exception because even without Modi, they have their own ways and methods to keep the working class in line and disciplined and that is why the relative weight of feelings against the encroachments of the big corporate capital outweigh their hatred towards the working class, which is well-known for anyone who has been to fields of Punjab even once. Ideologically, they have their own religious fundamentalist and chauvinist forces in Punjab to which they subscribe ideologically-politically, even though for economic demands they often align with left-controlled rich farmers’ unions, for obvious reasons.
Therefore, in general, winning over the small and middle capitalist class for Mr. Gandhi is not as simple as it seems.
Before we move to Mr. Gandhi’s gestures towards the working class and working poor in general, allow us to make a little diversion.
In the last couple of years, the stand of many within the revolutionary communist movement on the question of MSP and farmers’ movement has witnessed a shift. Some, the saner ones, have accepted that MSP is indeed an anti-people demand, a monopoly-rent appropriated by the agrarian bourgeoisie through a political monopoly-price (MSP) set by the bourgeois state in their favour, which was necessary and beneficial for the bourgeoisie in general in the 1960s, 1970s and partially the 1980s, but became a burden for the industrial-financial bourgeoisie after that. Then there are some others who are trying various kinds of intellectual somersaults to mend their position through the back-door after realizing about the real class character of the farmers’ movement, which was clearly a movement representing the class interests of the agrarian bourgeoisie. It became evident even during the farmers’ movement when the rich farmers expressed their attitude towards the agricultural labourers in no less unequivocal terms.
There is one particularly inane and idiotic trend which has claimed that farmers’ movement, accepting their call for making guaranteed government purchase of food-grains their central demand (!?), has now raised this demand which is a socialist demand in itself! First of all, the farmers’ movement has not raised any such demand. They only want the system of MSP to remain as a safety net and also the freedom to sell in the open market when it offers higher prices. Anyway, even if that was the case, any person familiar with communist program on agrarian question in general and with the history of agricultural policies in the Soviet Union in different periods knows that this is a completely rubbish argument. Why? Because guaranteed purchase becomes a socialist demand only when not only the state is obliged to buy the agricultural product but even the peasants are obliged to sell a determined share of their produce to the state. Are the rich kulaks and farmers ready to accept this obligation? Moreover, in the socialist context, such a deal is between the socialist state and peasant collectives, not the individual farmers and the state. A deal between the socialist state and individual peasants was there during the period of NEP (New Economic Policy), when the socialist transformation of agriculture was yet to take place. However, even in that arrangement during the period of NEP, the peasants were obliged to pay tax in kind in the form of a certain share of the agricultural produce to the state and then they could sell the remaining in the open market at market-price. Would the rich farmers be ready for such an obligation? Is the farmers’ movement even raising that demand? No. In the period after collectivization, the collectives were duty-bound to sell almost 90 percent of their produce to the state at a price fixed by the state which provided no surplus-profit, but a price that ensured that reproduction is continued on a scale required according to the socialist plan.
However, this particularly inane political trend gathered around a clique of intellectual pygmies and imposters (known as The Truth magazine and Sarvahara paper) is totally ignorant of this history and claims that today if the farmers’ movement demands that the state must buy its produce at a monopoly-price ensuring surplus-profit, in other words, at MSP, then it is a socialist demand! Only a sheer dimwit ignorant of history and theory of socialism can make such a scurrilous claim. Moreover, the farmers, according to “socialist demand” of this circle of schlumps’, in return, are not obliged to sell major part of their produce to the state at the fixed price! Whenever the open market offers them a price higher than the MSP, they will be free to sell in the open market and to refuse to sell to the state! Thus, according to these cretins, basically, state should provide a safety net to the high profitability of farming of the rich capitalist farmers and kulaks through MSP and whenever open market provides a higher price, the farmers would be free to sell in the open market! Thus, all freedom and rights of profiteering for the agrarian bourgeoisie and all duties for the state who will finance this profiteering of the agricultural bourgeoisie by exacting a heavy price from the working masses by systematically destroying the PDS and pushing the prices of food-grains upward causing a deduction from wages for the profit of the kulaks and capitalist farmers! What a gem! And this coterie of idiots gathered around The Truth magazine believe that this tail-ending of the rich kulaks and capitalist farmers can be couched as a socialist demand! They claim that the bourgeois state cannot promise a guaranteed purchase and this would bring it to a point of impossibility and would make clear to all farmers, the need of socialist revolution! What can one say to someone who loves to live in a fool’s paradise? First of all, the bourgeois state can make such a deal with agrarian bourgeoisie and it is not impossible for it as the history of capitalism shows. Not only during war economies but also various kinds of welfarist regimes can strike deals of guaranteed purchase of a considerable share of agricultural produce. This is neither a theoretical nor a historical impossibility. Moreover, the guarantee must be double-sided. Finally, this argument of bringing the capitalist system to a point of impossibility too has been plagiarized by this group from our position on demand for an Act for employment guarantee from the state. When we raised this demand, this particular group opposed it by saying that since the capitalist system cannot provide employment to all, there is no point in demanding an employment guarantee act. We responded that we must demand such an Act precisely because the capitalist system cannot provide jobs to all and the struggle for such a demand would bring the system to a point of impossibility, as Marx had alluded in his classic work Class Struggles in France, 1848-50, while commenting on the subversive character of the demand of right to work. However, this argument of bringing the system to a point of impossibility, which this group plagiarized from us, and employed in its endeavour to serve the kulak interests (!), cannot be applied arbitrarily! It can be applied only on demands that are progressive and pro-people in character. To raise a demand of a faction of the bourgeoisie, which presumably cannot be fulfilled by the bourgeois state, on the pretext of bringing the capitalist system to a point of impossibility (!), is travesty of basic Marxist logic and sheer idiocy. As the readers might be wondering, why are we even wasting a few words on a political trend so farcical and comic! The reason is all justification for tail-ending the agrarian bourgeoisie must be dismantled. In order to prove their outlandish “theory”, the representatives of this trend claim that due to crisis, even the rich farmers have lost any interest in selling in the open market and are only interested in guaranteed purchase. Wrong facts are summoned to support a wrong theory! The fact is that the rich farmers even in the last 3 years and always, have chosen to sell in the open market whenever the open market offered better prices and it often did in different crops that fetch MSP. The most recent example was selling of oilseeds in the open market due to exceptional increase in the prices of vegetable oil and consequently of the oilseeds. Similarly, rich farmers in Punjab were lining up to sell their agricultural produce like wheat to the silos of Adani, presumably their arch enemy! The truth is that the competition between the agrarian bourgeoisie and the industrial-financial big bourgeoisie is competition between two factions of the bourgeoisie for larger share in the appropriated surplus from the exploitation of the working class and to side with one of the faction in this conflict is travesty of basics of Marxist-Leninist politics and tantamount to losing the political independence of the proletariat. Such is the intellectual dishonesty of this particularly inane and anti-proletarian trend. There is no need to waste more words on this particularly laughable trend within the movement as nobody takes them seriously anymore. Those who still want to comprehend the limits of their idiocy and inanity and the absolute inability to comprehend the basics of Marxist political economy, can follow this link: https://redpolemique.wordpress.com/2021/05/18/ajay-sinha-aka-don-quixote-de-la-patnas-disastrous-encounter-with-marxs-theory-of-ground-rent/
We can now come to the question of Rahul Gandhi’s and BJY’s symbolic gestures towards the working class and working poor in general. The fact is that except some platitudes and sympathetic statements, there is nothing real for the working class and working masses. Mr. Gandhi has been talking about unemployment, which is, indeed, a real and most pressing issue for the working people. However, the policies which have created such high levels of unemployment are not rejected by Mr. Gandhi. In fact, he is proud of the fact that it was the Congress government that inaugurated the neoliberal policies in India in 1991 and he never forgets to flaunt this fact. Now, after 32 year of implementation of the policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization even the saner bourgeois economist knows that these policies do not generate employment and do not create any ‘trickle down’ impact. The only impact created by such policies is the siphoning up of the surplus labour of the working class in the form of surplus value at a much higher rate and trickling down of misery to the working masses. However, Mr. Gandhi somehow expects a different result from doing the same thing over and over again! Nevertheless, this is certainly not insanity, but a political strategy. In fact, when Mr. Gandhi is really discussing his economic vision in all honesty and sincerity, it is revealed that he has nothing to offer to the working class and toiling masses, except continued implementation of pro-capital policies, as he wants to make India the manufactory of the world, replacing China. And replacing China from that position would require anti-labour policies more brutal and draconian than those being implemented in China.
Despite these realities, which emerge only after a critical analysis and are not readily available for appreciation by the layman, BJY certainly attracted various elements from social classes which are disgruntled, discontented and angry due to the ruin and destruction brought to them by the Modi government in the last 9 years. It provided them with an outlet to vent and express their anger. It also gave hope to the eternally hopeless of Indian politics: the left-liberals, the liberal-lefts and the liberals and a lot of them registered their attendance in the BJY. This precisely is the foundation of the hegemonic character of this yatra. We are hearing about another cycle of BJY from the west to the east of the country, though nothing is sure yet. It is indeed possible that another round of such yatra will galvanize the social elements and forces opposed to Modi government even more. However, even then, the fascist social base of Modi remains intact, which is founded on building upon the insecurities of the petty-bourgeois masses as well as that of a part of organized labour and lumpen proletariat. That being said, it is not impossible to defeat Modi in the 2024 election, if the opposition parties come to an understanding and Congress continues to be aggressive in doing mass politics through such actions. However, it is extremely difficult right now and very unlikely. Moreover, to claim that an electoral defeat of Modi can be equated to the defeat of fascism would be nothing less than suicidal for the revolutionary movement. Fascism has never been and will never be decisively defeated by a purely electoral strategy. This truth is inscribed in the very structure and the function of fascism as a reactionary movement of the petty-bourgeoisie welded with the interests of the bourgeoisie in the periods of economic crisis.
Consequently, the most important fact for us revolutionaries, is that even if 2024 comes with a surprise, namely, the defeat of Modi, at the hands of a coalition led or supported by the Congress, there is nothing to be euphoric about. Why? Because of two main reasons. One, the economic policies will not witness any major shift, neoliberal policies of LPG will continue to trample on the masses as usual, no matter which bourgeois party or bourgeois parties come to power. The only slim change might be a slightly wider democratic space and less chauvinism in political and social policy of the government for the time being, though, even about that, one cannot be sure as all the bourgeois parties including the Congress have flirted with various forms of chauvinism and reaction at different points. As Lenin had pointed out, the era of imperialism means reaction all the way, in the domestic as well as international bourgeois policy. Secondly, any period of an ostensibly liberal bourgeois government in the political sense, in the era of the long depression and crisis of profitability will create the grounds for even more violent and aggressive rise of fascism in the next round; this has been proven by the contemporary Indian history of the last 35 years. Every such interregnum will prove to be the Weimer period of India and only prepare the context for more brutal resurgence of fascism, with may be someone even more virulent and rabid than the Modi-Shah duo at the helm of the affairs. At most, the highly unlikely defeat of Modi-Shah in 2024 can give some time to the revolutionary forces to prepare themselves and gather their forces. However, that too is not certain as in the present unprecedentedly moribund and decadent phase of imperialism, even the centrist or centre-right bourgeois parties can be equally repressive if the bourgeois interests require them to be.
Today, the statement of Max Horkheimer (notwithstanding his incorrect philosophical and political positions) that “those who don’t want to talk about capitalism, should also keep quiet about fascism” is much more relevant. Today, for the decisive defeat of fascism, the proletarian socialist revolution is essential. No bourgeois or social-democratic force can present any alternative of fascism. No alternative within the ambit of capitalism can be a real alternative to fascism today. That era is past now, if there was any. The visions of ‘popular front’ today can only spell disaster for the working class movement. Even the immediate aim today cannot be restoration of liberal bourgeois democracy for a variety of reasons. First, the fascism in the Twenty-first century does not give up the shell or veneer of bourgeois democracy. Second, the bourgeois democracy itself has become so bereft of any political content and devoid of any potential that there is no need for today’s fascism to destroy its shell. In fact, it is beneficial for fascism to keep this shell, as it makes the fascist rise even more hegemonic. Moreover, the fascist forces today have effected what Gramsci had termed ‘molecular permeation’ not only in the pores of the so-called ‘civil society’ but also the apparatuses of the ‘political society’, that is, the state, from the police, the army and bureaucracy to the apparent sanctum sanctorum of bourgeois democracy, the celebrated, free and independent judiciary. This too has facilitated the fascists today in keeping the shell of the bourgeois democracy. Due to all these factors, the strategic aim today in the anti-fascist struggle is not restoration of some form of bourgeois democracy or people’s democracy, but socialist revolution and establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It would be perfectly apt to quote Gramsci here, who contrary to certain Marxists of today, realized this fact almost a 100 years ago:
At the current time it is a question of something other than the return of the constitution, to democracy and liberalism. These latter are mellifluous words that the bourgeoisie uses to mislead the workers of the city and the countryside in order to prevent the crisis from taking on its true character, that is the vengeance of the workers and peasants against the fascism that has suppressed them and against the liberalism that has misled them, and which just a few months ago collaborated or sought to collaborate (D’Aragona, Baldesi, etc) with Mussolini. (Antonio Gramsci, 1924, ‘Neither Fascism Nor Liberalism: Sovietism!’, L’Unità, October 7, 1924)
Again:
The Italian crisis can only be resolved through the action of the laboring masses. There is no possibility for the liquidation of fascism on the plain of parliamentary intrigues, only a compromise that leaves the bourgeoisie at the lead along with armed fascism at its service. Liberalism, even if inoculated with the glands of the reformist monkey, is powerless. It belongs to the past. And all the Don Struzos of Italy, united with the Turatis and the Vellas, will not succeed in returning to it the youth necessary for the liquidation of fascism. (ibid)
Sadly enough, what Gramsci understood about fascism almost 100 years ago, many so-called Marxists and communists are not able to understand even today, under the sway of their pessimism, tail-endism and lack of political independence.
The immediate task for us is to rely on our forces, carry out revolutionary agitation and propaganda among the masses, creatively apply the revolutionary massline under the guidance of Marxist theory in order to formulate the correct political class line at every moment, expose fascism thoroughly among the masses, reveal the true anti-people nature of the fascist forces, organize the masses on their real issues, carry out political propaganda on the question of communalism and the meaning of true revolutionary secularism, build revolutionary mass movements on questions of employment, inflation, education and workers’ rights. United front with revolutionary communist forces on a common minimum anti-fascist program is also essential as only a concerted effort on the part of revolutionary communists can effectively resist the fascist forces. Most intensive and extensive campaigns and movements are needed at present. The next year should be made the year of revolutionary political work at war-footing with the general anti-fascist working class strategy, program and aims in command.
