Struggle of The Trade Unions Against Fascism/Introduction

WHEN the Fascisti conquered power in Italy, and Mussolini established his dictatorship, there was no country in which the capitalist forces greeted the coup more heartily than in the United States. The newspapers and magazines, intensifying their yellow-journalistic hero worship, vied with one another in extolling the virtues of the Black Shirts. The Government of the U. S., the same which has for six years refused to recognize Soviet Russia because that workers' republic is "undemocratic," hastened to be among the first to accord full diplomatic recognition to the Fascist counter-revolution. That Fascism is international, and that its roots exist in America, has been fully demonstrated to all classes.

In spite, however, of all that has been written about the Fascisti, the workers of America have no clear idea as yet of what Fascism means to the labor movement. An example of the confusion existing is seen in the report of John H. Walker, President of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, to the Decatur Convention of that body (September, 1923), in which the Fascist movement in this country is described as merely an extention of the well-established "open shop" drive, of American capitalism. Such a point of view, natural as the mistake may be, ignores some of the most dangerous aspects of Fascism. It leads directly, even while apparent struggle against Fascism is called for, to actual surrender to the most insidious forms of that anti-working-class movement. Thus John H. Walker, in the same report, although attacking the Fascisti, calls for the formation within the labor unions of posts of the American Legion, which is an outstanding example of Fascist organization in the United States.

Fascism in this country is a many-headed menace; it is not yet well-developed and centralized, and appears under various forms and names. This multiform aspect hinders the clear understanding of Fascism by the workers. In the first place, there is the genuine Fascism, organized among the Italian workers resident in America by agents of Mussolini. The fight of the Italian militants against the Fascisti has been crystallized in the Anti-Fascist Alliance of North America, with headquarters in New York; its work has been supported by hundreds of thousands of trade unionists, and has been so effective that the parent Fascist body in Italy recently (according to a statement in the Progresso Italo-Americano), ordered the branches to disband and reorganize upon a different basis. It must be pointed out, ​however, that the Fascist Party of Italy is a direct factor only among the Italian immigrant population.

In the agrarian districts of the U. S., the roots of Fascism show themselves in the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. This is, without doubt, the most native, 100% American, expression of the Fascisti movement. As this is written, the State of Oklahoma, comprising 70,000 square miles of territory (more than six times the size of Belgium) is under martial law, due to a struggle between the State Government and the Ku Klux Klan. In many other States, particularly in the Middle West and South, the Klan is pushing forward its claim to power with increasing boldness.

The K. K. K. is a curious mixture; one factor is the traditions of post-Civil War days, when the Klan originated as a weapon for the subjection of the Negro recently freed from chattel-slavery—from this it gets its name, ritual, robes, flaming cross, etc.; added to this a crude anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and general "anti-foreigner," 100% American propaganda. A vaguely defined but militant anti-communist spirit is woven throughout its agitation, and becomes, in practice, anti-labor union. Nominally the K. K. K. is a centralized organization, but actually it centralizes little but the sale of robes, etc., and even in that field, the economic exploitation of the ignorance of the yokels making up its membership, the K. K. K. has split into several competing bodies. Locally it takes on the most conflicting aspects; in one community its maurading masked bands tar-and-feather and flog boot-leggers—in another it turns its violence against Federal enforcers of the Volstead Act. It may, in one locality, be an instrument of small producers and tenants, trying to control the market for cotton and tobacco—in another it will be the violent suppression of tenant and farm labor movements. In its methods it is typically Fascist, except for the K. K. K. white robe and hood; the Fascisti of Italy prided themselves upon their bold and open violence. It is worthy of note that the K. K. K. has established itself chiefly in the most backward agrarian communities; in the industrial centers its dupes have been among municipal employees and similar elements.

The American Legion, composed of ex-service men, founded and led by ex-officers of the American, Expeditionary Force in France, has developed along the well-known Fascist lines. In countless towns and cities it has accumulated a record of strike-breaking activities and general violence against the labor and revolutionary movements which has made it hated in labor circles. Its spiritual kinship with the Fas​cisti of Italy is dramatically expressed in its invitation to Mussolini to be its guest at the San Francisco Convention of the Legion, October, 1923.

The American Legion has, with a keen appreciation of the tactics of Mussolini, adopted the tactic of "boring from within" the trade unions. It soon registered results with this policy, and at the Cincinnati Convention of the American Federation of Labor, June, 1922, an open alliance was proclaimed between the Legion and the Gompers bureaucracy. The national leader of the Legion addressed the A. F. of L. Convention, and Gompers appeared before the Legion. The same thing is being repeated this year, and on a much larger scale, with a program of forming American Legion posts within the trade unions themselves. When the reader has studied the course of the Fascist movement in Italy as described in this pamphlet, with the accompanying destruction of the labor movement and establishment of Fascist "unionism," it will be readily seen that in these trade union posts of the American Legion are being developed the basis for the Fascist trade unions in America. The trade union bureaucrats of America will probably furnish much of the leadership for the coming Fascist Party. If Mussolini had been able to attend the Legion Convention in San Francisco, we might have had the sublime spectacle of Samuel Gompers and Benito, the dictator, speaking together from the same platform; it would have symbolized the growing powers of Faccism within the labor movement of this country.

The full development of the American Legion as a complete Fascist movement is still a matter of the future. It has been retarded somewhat by the issue of the "soldiers' bonus," in which the American Legion found itself in open opposition to the ruling capitalist clique. Not daring to abandon the demand for the bonus, and not daring to make an aggressive fight for it in the face of the disapproval of their capitalist masters, the leaders of the Legion found the ardor of their rank and file distinctly cooled. But the basic reason is that the social and economic conditions in the United States are not ripe for a real Fascist development. There has not yet been a fundamental and far-reaching crisis in the class struggle to shake the foundations of American capitalism.

Another Fascist organization, the "Minute Men of the Constitution," was organized this year, 1923. It is led by Brigadier-General Charles G. Dawes ("Hell- and Maria" Dawes) who is, in addition to his military honors, an ex-budget expert in the Harding administra​tion and a banker, connected with the Central Trust Company of Chicago. This body is openly and frankly an adjunct of the "open shop" movement, being militantly reactionary in all its manifestations. Outwardly it is the most threatening expression of the Fascist idea in the United States, but it has not registered in any definite action as yet. Its future is still problematical. Whether it will become the powerful weapon against the trade unions that its founder wishes remains to be seen.

The affinity between the A. F. of L. bureaucracy and the Fascist idea has been pointed out in a previous paragraph. This same phenomenon is being developed in a different direction, in the campaign of violence, expulsions, and splits, launched against the adherents of the R. I. L. U. within the mass unions of America. This aspect of the situation, while impossible of extended treatment in this introduction, is of more than passing significance in the study of Fascism in America. Just as Mussolini, Rossoni, and other leaders of the Italian Fascist Party, were leaders of the Socialist and trade union movements, so we may expect the real Fascist leadershia in America to spring from the Gompers bureaucracy.

An extended study of Fascism, and its relation to trade union problems, in this country has still to be made. These few lines, as an introduction to the pamphlet originally written as a report to the Enlarged Executive of the Red International of Labor Unions, July, 1923, by Andreas Nin, of Spain, Assistant General Secretary of the R. I. L. U., will serve to indicate some of the vital points of comparison between the struggle of the trade unions of Europe against Fascism, and the developing Fascist movement in the United States. Andreas Nin’s pamphlet is a searching, critical study, which will be of immeasurable service to the American movement.

Chicago, September 25, 1923.