Anti-racism and anti-fascism: a Marxist curriculum

David Lethbridge 

Want to learn about racism and fascism? There are any number of 
books available on these topics by mainstream, liberalist, 
anarchist, and even conservative writers. What they all lack, 
however, is any form of class analysis, any discussion of how 
racism and fascism serve the ruling class and are part and parcel 
of class rule under capitalism. For such an analysis, Marxism 
provides the tools.

But these days, it is more and more difficult to find Marxist 
books at the local bookstore, no matter what the topic. And since 
racism and fascism are such central and important features of 
contemporary capitalism, the lack of easy availability to the 
necessary Marxist texts is all the more disturbing.

Still, the books exist. In these right-wing times, it just takes 
a bit of digging to find them. But what to read? What's the 
required reading list? Here's the curriculum for Anti-Racism:

(1) Begin with On Colonialism, a collection by Marx and 
Engels. What is so significant about the essays in this 
collection is that they deal with the revolutions and liberation 
movements in countries such as India, Persia, and China without 
exhibiting the least breath of racism or paternalism.

These essays were written at a time when Western Europe, and 
especially Great Britain, were actively constructing non-white 
peoples as racially, intellectually, and morally inferior. 
Popular novels of the day — the Sherlock Homes stories by Conan 
Doyle, for example — were filled with the most ugly racial and 
anti-Semitic caricatures. Scholarly and academic writing was just 
as nakedly racist. And, of course, the imperialist policies of 
the Western "great powers" were nothing other than white racism 
in action.

But nothing of this poisonous ideology is to be found in Marx and 
Engels. On the contrary, their support for anti-imperialist 
revolution is an example of class analytic anti-racism in action.

(2) Anti-Semitism and Zionism, edited by Daniel Rubin. 
This very timely book includes numerous selections by Lenin 
advocating complete unity between Jewish and non-Jewish sectors 
of the proletariat in the fight against anti-Semitism, as well as 
a variety of contemporary Marxist analyses of Zionist national 
chauvinism, and the tendency of Zionism to support monopoly 
capitalism. This important book demonstrates the necessity for 
combatting anti-Semitism while at the same time exposing the 
reactionary nature of Zionist ideology.

(3) Fighting Racism, by Gus Hall. Forty years of essays by 
the former leader of the Communist Party of the USA, demonstrate 
how the system of discrimination against African-Americans splits 
the working class and allows the ruling class to reap billions in 
super-profits. These easy to read essays explore every aspect of 
white supremacy — "the nation's most dangerous pollutant."

(4) We Charge Genocide, edited by William L Patterson. 
This volume consists primarily of the historic petition presented 
to the United Nations in 1951 charging the US state with genocide 
against African-Americans. Basing itself on the UN convention on 
genocide, the text includes literally thousands of documented 
examples of lynchings, beatings, frame-ups, false arrests, and 
orchestrated murders of Black Americans. Patterson was the 
director of the Civil Rights Congress, and a Communist militant 
with decades of experience fighting the US state's policy of 
white supremacy.

(5) Against Fascism and War, by George Dimitrov. As 
General-Secretary of the Communist International, Dimitrov's 1935 
report to the Seventh World Congress presents the classic 
Marxist-Leninist analysis of the origins of fascist state power 
and outlines the politics of the united front strategy for its 
defeat. As much as the capitalist ruling class has tried to deny 
it, Dimitrov's formulation that fascism represents "the open 
terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic 
and most imperialist elements of finance capital" is as 
applicable today as it was during the prelude to World War Two.

(6) Lectures on Fascism, by Palmiro Togliatti. As leader 
of the Communist Party of Italy, Togliatti's Lectures 
complement Dimitrov's analysis. The particular value in 
Togliatti's work is its use of Marxist concepts to explore the 
ideological and organisational forces fascism employs to create a 
mass base of power. 

(7) Fascism and Social Revolution, by R Palme Dutt. Firmly 
locating fascism in the context of imperialism, Dutt examines the 
rise of fascism in Italy, Germany, and Austria in fine detail. Of 
particular importance is his factual demonstration of the role 
played by social democracy in betraying the working class and 
making the rise of fascism possible.

(8) Economics of Racism: Roots of Black Inequality, and 
Economics of Racism II, by Victor Perlo. Perlo's two books 
are an effective exercise in Marxist political economy. Much as 
Marx had done in the nineteenth century, Perlo uses the rich data 
bases of the state to demonstrate the many ways in which white 
racism perpetuates and institutionalizes poverty in communities 
of colour, while at the same time not only generating enormous 
profits for the ruling class, but also ensuring lower wages and a 
stagnant or declining standard of living for white workers.

But the course isn't over yet! When you have read the books, 
what's next? The most important part: the practicum. In the 
classroom, at multicultural seminars, in the labour hall, or out 
on the streets, it's time to take up the banner of Marxism and 
put anti-racism and anti-fascism into action.

* * *

Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies.

Further info visit http://www.bethuneinstitute.org