Upstream - [TEASER] How Fascism Works

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

This is a free preview of the episode "How Fascism Works." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. In this episode of our reading series, Robbie reads and provides real-time analysis of the opening chapter of the classic book Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism & the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti. The text covers the topics of plutocracy and autocracy, whom the fascists last century supported, a bit of history on Hitler and Mussolini, the rational and irrational aspects of fascism, patriarchy and pseudo-revolution, collaboration, and much more.  The analysis provided in the reading brings this text into our current conditions and looks at where Parenti's analysis holds up and where it might need to be stretched and adapted to help us understand the rise of neofascism in the United States under Trump and his modern day fascist footsoldiers. We explain why it's more important than ever to resist collaboration and to stand in full solidarity with all of the racialized and criminalized "others" in order to combat the fearmongering and scapegoating that fascism relies on in order to grow in strength.  Further resources: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, by Michael Parenti Related episodes: From the Frontlines: State Repression and Anti-Imperialist Organizing w/ Calla Walsh Capitalism, The State, and How We Got Here with Christian Parenti Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode in our Patreon reading series. Today, I'm going to be reading from a well-known book, Michael Perranti's Black Shirts and Reds, Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism. And I first read this book probably about two years ago, and it was just one of those books where I like underlined every single paragraph practically, you know, one of those books that just feels like it's a really essential reading. And it's not a particularly long book, and it's quite accessible. I'm sure many of you have probably read it. And so I'm going to make sure to pop in here and there and just sort of

bring the book into our present situation and analyze it as we go through it in real time, looking at places where it's relevant and spot on and maybe seeing where it's not so applicable and looking at places where you know, fascism might have evolved in ways that don't necessarily fit into parentis analysis anymore as much. I'm just going to read the first chapter, which is about 17 pages long. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun, very, very dark,

dark fun going through that chapter and just talking about this really exciting new political development that we are all so lucky to be living through right now, which is fascism or neo-fascism or however you want to characterize it. So this is going to be a little bit of a break from the China series, of course, which will resume next time if all goes as planned with an episode with the guest Tingings Chok, who is with the Tri-Continental Institute for Social Research, that is Vijay Prashad's Institute, and sort of looking at the issue of environmental protection

and its intersection with human development in China, actually from the perspective of a very specific lake cleanup project. So I think that's going to be a very interesting and fascinating conversation, very much looking forward to that. So that'll be next time. But for now, let's take a bit of a break and take a deep dive into this topic of fascism, this topic, which, you know, if you're anything like me, it's got you biting your nails and struggling a bit to find ways to sort of see a path forward with everything that is happening around us at happening at such breakneck speed too.

So without further ado, here is chapter one of Michael Perranti's Black Shirts and Reds, published in 1997 by City Lights Books. Rational Fascism While walking through New York's Little Italy, I passed a novelty shop that displayed posters and t-shirts of Benito Mussolini giving the fascist salute, or otherwise known as the Roman salute. Ha ha. When I entered the shop and asked the clerk

why such items were being offered, he replied, quote, well, some people like them. And you know, maybe we need someone like Mussolini in this country, end quote. His comment was a reminder that fascism survives as something more than a historical curiosity. And just a quick aside from the text here already, if you've read Blood in My Eye by George Jackson, you will be hard-pressed not to be convinced that fascism has always been

here and that it has never gone away. And yes, there are certain characteristics of fascism, which in terms of like definitionally, it requires a mass movement and it requires a charismatic authoritarian leader, and it requires sort of a certain type of class politics, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you can go through these definitions and sort of spend hours and hours splitting hairs

with people about what fascism is and what it isn't. And so I really appreciate George Jackson because he talks about how we will never have a complete definition of fascism because it is in constant motion, he says, showing a new face to fit any particular set of problems that arise to threaten the predominance of the traditionalist capitalist ruling class. And so his definition of fascism, which I really like to is quote, at its core, and this is George

Jackson, I know I'm going into like, I'm already doing that thing where I like go into multiple different texts and multiple different analyses within the primary analysis that we're doing. But just stick with me here. At its core, fascism is an economic rearrangement. It is international capitalism's response to the challenge of international scientific socialism. Fascism must be seen as an episodically logical stage in the socio-economic development of capitalism in the state of crisis." And so this is sort of where we get the definition of fascism as capitalism in crisis. And that's a very important component of fascism because fascism does arise. it does need a crisis, whether that crisis was the Great Depression, whether that crisis was the early stages of the COVID pandemic. It requires some kind of crisis

because when capitalism is steadily chugging along and it's doing okay relatively for most people, fascism lurks beneath the surface at that point, right? Fascistic tendencies, right? Like repression, hyper repression, and scapegoating and creating an other, and the rise of sort of an authoritarian figure that serves as like the patriarchical daddy figure, which is Trump right now. That stuff sort of remains latent, right? At that point, it's not front and center, but it only takes a little bit, just a little bit of a crisis

in order for those elements and those characteristics to begin to emerge and become dominant. And so I think that is what we're seeing right now. And so I'm not going to get any more into like, trying to define all of the different components of fascism here But just suffice it to say at this point I think thinking of it as capitalism in crisis is gonna be really helpful moving forward and Heeding the words of George Jackson who explains that fascism is already here Okay, let's get back to the text Fascism is already here.

Okay, let's get back to the text. Worse than posters or t-shirts are the works by various writers bent on quote, explaining Hitler or re-evaluating Franco or in other ways, sanitizing fascist history. In Italy, during the 1970s, there emerged a veritable cottage industry of books and articles claiming that Mussolini not only made the trains run on time, but also made Italy work well. All these publications, along with many conventional academic studies, have one thing in common. They say little, if anything, about the class policies of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

How did these regimes deal with social services, taxes, businesses, and the conditions of labor? For whose benefit and at whose expense? Most of the literature on fascism and Nazism does not tell us. Subsection Plutocrats Choose Autocrats Let us begin with a look at fascism's founder. Born in 1883, the son of a blacksmith, Benito Mussolini's early manhood was marked by street brawls, arrests, jailings, and violent radical political activities.

Before World War I, Mussolini was a socialist. A brilliant organizer, agitator, and gifted journalist, he became editor of the Socialist Party's official newspaper. Yet many of his comrades suspected him of being less interested in advancing socialism than in advancing himself. Indeed, when the Italian upper class tempted him with recognition, financial support, and the promise of power, he did not hesitate to switch sides. By the end of World War I, Mussolini, the socialist who had organized strikes for workers and peasants, had become Mussolini the fascist, who broke strikes on behalf of financiers and landowners.

Using the huge sums he received from wealthy interests, he projected himself onto the national scene as the acknowledged leader of I Fasci di Combatimento, a movement composed of black-shirted ex-army officers and sundry tufts who were guided by no clear political doctrine other than a militaristic patriotism and conservative dislike for anything associated with socialism and organized labor. The fascist blackshirts spent their time attacking trade unionists, socialists, communists, and farm cooperatives. And I think just as a quick aside here, fascism right now does not feel like an immediate response to communism or socialism in the same way as maybe it was when it first reared its ugly head into the world. There is no communist or socialist movement in the United States worth the time or energy of fascists to combat.

Fascism is a response to something else at this point. Maybe it's the perceived socialism and communism, but like you hear about when you see Republicans talk about how NPR is like a communist echo chamber or when they characterize everything as socialist and communist, they are still utilizing that language. And it's very interesting that they have to conjure up a spectrum of communism that does not exist in the United States in order for fascism to really have something to bite into. But it seems like fascism now is a response to just simple liberalism, right? It's just a response to the basic safety nets and the basic countermeasures of the liberal system that attempt to manage the worst of capitalism,

unsuccessfully of course, but it definitely does not feel like a response to communism, although it's important to note that communist movements, socialist Marxist movements, are the only antidote to fascism. Liberalism, as we're seeing plainly before our eyes, and this is not just a one-off, this is how it's worked over and over in history, liberalism, and in our case the Democratic Party, is not up to the task. They are not prepared or interested in fighting fascism as it emerges now in the United States. You can talk about why you can get into the specific individual Democratic Party members who are extremely comfortable, have way more in common in terms of their interests with the Republicans and the neo-fascists around

them much, much, much more in common than they have with any socialist or communist. Even people like AOC are coming out right now and making damn sure that people know that they are not radical, quote, and this is quote, quote, radical socialists, right? So that's fairly obvious just looking at the analysis of individual Democratic Party members. And liberalism as an ideology cannot combat fascism because liberalism as an ideology accepts many of the basic foundational preconditions of fascism. Liberalism is capitalistic. Liberalism does believe in inequality. Liberalism does require inequality in order for its economic system to function. So liberalism is not an antidote to fascism in any way, shape or form.

The only antidote is a socialist movement that wants to abolish class and that is willing to take militant action against fascism, which is the only language that fascism understands. Okay, let's get back to the text. After World War I, Italy had settled into a pattern of parliamentary democracy. The low pay scales were improving and the trains were already running on time. But the capitalist economy was in a post-war recession. Investments stagnated, heavy industry-operated far below capacity, and corporate profits

and agribusiness exports were declining. To maintain profit levels, the large landowners and industrialists would have to slash wages and raise prices. The state, in turn, would have to provide them with massive subsidies and tax exemptions. To finance this corporate welfarism, the populace would have to be taxed more heavily, and social services and welfare expenditures would have to be drastically cut, measures that might sound familiar to us today. But the government was not completely free to pursue this course. In 1921, many Italian workers and peasants were unionized and had their own political

organizations. With demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, factory takeovers, and the forcible occupation of farmlands, they had won the right to organize, along with concessions in wages and work conditions. To impose a full measure of austerity upon workers and peasants, the ruling economic interests would have to abolish the democratic rights that helped the masses defend their modest living standards. The solution was to smash their unions, political organizations, and civil liberties. Industrialists and big landowners wanted someone at the helm

who could break the power of organized workers and farm laborers and impose a stern order on the masses. For this task, Benito Mussolini, armed with his gangs of blackshirts, seemed the likely candidate. And just a quick aside here, we're seeing very much the dismantling of even the modest and milk toast labor union sphere here in the United States, first with the sabotaging of the NLRB by the Trump administration. And it's interesting because the Republican Party, I think, is trying to sort of bridge these two

opposing realities, right? One of them is what Perente is talking about here, right? Like the right needs workers to be unorganized so that they can be easily crushed. And yet at the same time, the vast majority of people are workers. So how do you sell them policies that intend to crush them? Well, you have to do so through subterfuge, right? And so we have certain elements of the Republican Party paying lip service to certain working class elements. You have, you know, UAW president Sean Fain talking about supporting Trump's tariffs, for example, the sort of America first mentality, which is used to sort of raise the patriotic sentiments among workers and get them on board with this agenda that is essentially meant to crush them. While at the same time you have stories of Trump drafting

executive orders that aim to restrict collective bargaining for national security reasons, which he loves to use that for everything. That's the reason we're planning on taking over Greenland, and that's also the reason that you can't unionize. So these executive orders that exempt federal jobs from union protections, right? Like they're doing everything they can to crush unions while at the same time in the most superficial ways they're trying to paint a picture of themselves that is not as starkly anti-worker as it is so that the majority of the population who are workers are not alienated by what's happening because they're being deceived and duped. Okay, so back to the book.

In 1922, the Federazione Industriale, composed of the leaders of industry, along with representatives from the banking and agribusiness associations, met with Mussolini to plan the quote, March on Rome, contributing 20 million lire to the undertaking. With additional backing of Italy's top military officers and police chiefs, the fascist quote, revolution, really a coup d'etat, took place. Within two years after seizing state power, Mussolini had shut down all opposition newspapers and crushed the socialist, liberal, Catholic, democratic, and republican parties, which together had commanded some 80% of the vote.

Labor leaders, peasant leaders, parliamentary delegates, and others critical of the new regime were beaten, exiled, or murdered by fascist terrorist squadristi. The Italian Communist Party endured the severest repression of all, yet managed to maintain a courageous underground resistance that eventually evolved into the armed struggle against the Blackshirts and the German occupation force. And so just a quick aside from the book here, I was listening to an excellent recent episode of Red Menace where they explored one of Trotsky's texts on fascism with a guest. And the guest they had on, I believe his name was Brendan was talking about how, in in fact it was not the March on Rome

that was the ushering in of fascism in Italy. Mussolini took power in a legal way, right? And that's very important, I think, to draw that distinction because Trump and the Trump administration have taken power through legal means. They haven't necessarily broken any laws in order to get into power as far as we know. So it's that much more insidious because we have to see fascism as a rising, as a legitimate part of the system before it then begins to dismantle the parts of the system which don't benefit it. So just a really important aside on that. And when you're done listening to this, definitely go check out that Red Menace episode on fascism. It's one of the best things I've ever listened to. Back to the book. In Germany, a similar pattern of complicity between fascists and capitalists emerged. German workers and farm laborers had won the right to unionize, the 8-hour day, and unemployment

insurance. But to revive profit levels, heavy industry and big finance wanted wage cuts for their workers and massive state subsidies and tax cuts for themselves. That sounds familiar. And I think actually one of the driving forces of what is happening right now in the Trump administration is not some ideological need to, I don't know, repress trans people or whatever the fuck. This is all driven by capitalists wanting less restrictions on their wealth.

They want tax cuts. They wanna be able to operate in a completely free for all environment where they can get away with whatever they need to get away with to maximize capital accumulation. Massive tax cuts are always the backbone of any Republican administration and any rise in fascism. And this is what is so important about this text, Black Shirts and Reds, is that

Parenti is really trying to drive home the fact that fascism is not in opposition to capitalism. It is a phase of capitalism. It is a stage in capitalism. It is capitalistic at its core, and it works in concert with capitalists. listen to the full episode by becoming an Upstream Patreon subscriber. As a Patreon subscriber, you will gain access to bi-weekly episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will also give you access to our entire back catalogue of Patreon episodes, along with stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. You'll also be helping keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at patreon.com forward slash Upstream podcast.