Status Updates From Fascism and Social Revolution

Lessons from the success of Italian and German fascism — they were a result of the proletarian revolution being defeated from within by revisionist leadership. In the case of Germany, the revolution happened without a vanguard, causing its quick co-opting by social democrats, leading to its subsequent defeat. If a vanguard cannot control the mass orgs, even if the mass orgs win temporarily, it's not permanent.

The dangers of retaining "reformers" and socdems in your vanguard is abundantly clear. Unless the vanguard can purge them with decisive precision, they will destroy the unity of the workers' movement.

Dutt's notes on how revisionists approach the "middle class" (petty-bourgeoisie) is something we MLs need to crit and self-crit on a lot more. Conflating managers/labor aristocrats/small business owners with class enemies inflates the ranks of the enemy camp. However, they are two-faced and vacillating. That being said I think a lot of MLs do wrongly categorize them as "lacking revolutionary potential".

I feel so angry as I continue reading this book. Almost everything Palme Dutt describes about fascism can be observed today in the imperial core but liberals insist on being ostriches. It's very difficult to retain any semblance of respect for liberals and "social democrats" whatsoever.

The tools of bourgeoisie to extend the longevity of capitalism: direct armed conflict (Truman doctrine, domino theory, etc), limited concessions via social democracy (through actors like Mamdani, Sanders, the Canadian NDP, etc), and drawing on the reserves/surplus of American capitalism (which is failing as we speak — Iran War accelerated matters).

I went into flow state and read/annotated this much in one sitting. It is uncanny how the events described in this book parallel what happened post 2008 recession to the incoming 2026 economic crisis with the Iran war almost perfectly. Essentially: in this era of history, there are two choices left to society — fascism (capitalism in terminal decline) and communism. There is no "3rd option".