'Rightism' is American Fascism!

'Rightism' is American Fascism!

So-called "right" or "extreme right" movements are not, as they claim, defending the country against Communists. The Socialist Labor Party holds that the real target of these reactionary groups is the rights and civil liberties of the American people. The unprincipled Communists are merely a convenient and vulnerable target.

There is no denying that these reactionary movements, particularly of late, have succeeded in imposing a "black silence of fear" on millions of once proudly independent and fearlessly outspoken Americans.

Over the years, the announced targets of reactionary movements have varied. In Thomas Jefferson's time the Alien and Sedition Laws aimed to suppress all opposition to the administration then in power. About a hundred years ago the reactionists whipped up a frenzy against German and Irish Catholic immigrants. Forty-odd years ago the espionage laws served as a cloak, among other things, for the persecutions and raids under the then Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Later came Martin Dies with his House Committee on Un-American Activities, which contributed greatly to building up an atmosphere of intolerance and fear. And not too long ago we lived through the McCarthy era.

Now we have a score or more of "right" and "extreme right" movements, some of them with substantial backing from known capitalist sources.

Prominently associated with the current reactionary movements are the names of Robert H.W. Welch Jr., of the John Birch Society; Fred Charles Schwarz, Australian psychiatrist, of the so-called Christian Anti-Communism Crusade; and George Lincoln Rockwell, Hitler's American disciple, of the American "Nazi" party. There are others.

Various "rightist" groups are now vying with each other for supremacy. The most formidable among them, in terms of membership, money and notoriety, appear to be the John Birch Society and the so-called Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.

WHO ARE BEHIND THE BIRCHERS?

Who are behind the John Birch Society? The following is quoted from a United Press story by Barbara Bundschu (Cleveland Press, April, 1961):

"Twelve of the 26 men currently listed as members of the society's council are in "Who's Who in America." They include two former presidents of the National Association of Manufacturers -- William J. Grebe and C.G. Parker, both of Wisconsin.... Other council members include Spruille Braden, former U.S. ambassador [to Argentina]; T. Coleman Andrews, former Collector of Internal Revenue; Clarence Manion, former dean of the Notre Dame law school; N.T. Phelps, former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona; Col. Laurence E. Bunker, former personal aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and Lt. Gen. Charles B. Stone III, USAF ret., former commander of the 14th Air Force in China." And the associate editor of Welch's magazine American Opinion is J.B. Matthews, notorious chief investigator for the late Senator McCarthy's committee. Congressman Edgar W. Hiestand (R-Calif.) is an admitted member of the John Birch Society. Another California Republican, Congressman John H. Rousselot, recently had inserted in the Congressional Record Appendix what he called "General Beliefs and Principles of the John Birch Society."

SCHWARZ'S CAPITALIST BACKERS

Schwarz's so-called Christian Anti-Communism Crusade is not without its own backers and prominent endorsers. Schwarz has received the unqualified approval of C.D. Jackson, the publisher of Life, as reported by Alan Barth in The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 26, 1961. Schwarz has received television sponsorship by such outstanding industrial firms as the Richfield Oil Co., the Schick Safety Razor Co., and the Technicolor Corp. It is significant to note that he has also the support, financial and otherwise, of a powerful group of Texas oil millionaires.

The nature and sources of the support received by the "right" and "extreme right" movements are not unlike those given Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Extermination by Hitler's methods is avowed by at least one of these "extreme right" groups, the so-called American Nazi party, headed by George Lincoln Rockwell. According to Herman Hornsby, a private detective who acted as a spy in the American Nazi party of Chicago, members of the party are taught "that Jews should be gassed and Negroes sent to Africa. If the Negroes won't go back to Africa, the Nazis believe they should be gassed, too."

ROOTS OF "RIGHTISM"

While it is true that many prominent Americans, including the President of the United States, have raised their voices against the preachments of the "extreme right," these prominent Americans have failed to point to the underlying cause of these movements. It was the same in the McCarthy era. Those who opposed McCarthyism, outside of the Socialist Labor Party, blamed it all on the man. They failed to bring out that McCarthy couldn't have gotten as far as he did if the social climate in America were not what it was then. And we say now that the current crop of "right" and "extreme right" movements would not be where it is if the social climate in America were not what it is now. That social climate was and is a climate of fear and insecurity. The workers are afraid of losing their jobs. The capitalists are afraid of losing their property and class privileges. Everyone is afraid of thermonuclear war. Most of those outside the Socialist Labor Party no longer look forward with confidence. They look backward with desperate nostalgia. There is a desire to stop the clock -- or turn its hands back to some easier, earlier time, to what some call "the good old days."

It is an ironic situation, but one fraught with grave danger.

We have learned to produce an abundance that can end poverty and want forever -- but millions of families are living in unrelieved poverty, and, as John F. Kennedy said in 1960, 17,000,000 go to bed hungry every night.

Our inventive genius is constantly improving tools, now bringing us automation, but instead of lessening our fears and insecurity it is increasing both.

Our scientists have unlocked the secret of the atom and released its mighty power, but this did not fulfill the promise of a brighter and more secure world. Instead we tremble with the fear of possible universal destruction.

CAPITALISM'S IRRECONCILABLE CONTRADICTIONS

Such are the irreconcilable contradictions of the obsolete system of capitalism. But as obsolete and inhuman as it is, the capitalists want to preserve it. And they will stop at nothing in their attempts to do so. In Italy the capitalists sponsored Mussolini and the fascist reaction. In Germany they financed Adolf Hitler and used him to subdue the German workers. In America there are unmistakable signs that a powerful section of the capitalist class is ready for the fascist plunge. Ten years ago many capitalists had picked their fuehrer in the person of Joseph R. McCarthy. McCarthy is gone but capitalism's need for a fascist hoop to hold together the collapsing barrel of capitalism is greater than ever before. Now the capitalists have many would-be fuehrers to choose from -- Welch, Schwarz, Rockwell, Buckley, et al.

HOW CAN WE RESIST REACTION?

But, what shall we, the majority, do -- the majority upon whom the yoke of fascism will be imposed by the capitalist class in its desperation to continue its system? How can we fight this reactionary menace?

If we are ready to accept the lessons of history, we shall fight the reaction by uprooting the cause -- the economic despotism, the capitalist system.

The program of the Socialist Labor Party alone shows the way out of the prevailing chaos and social anarchy. The Constitution of the United States, through its amendment clause, provides for social change. In accordanee with this constitutional principle, the Socialist Labor Party calls upon the workers of brain and brawn to unite under its banner and vote the capitalist system out and Socialism in.

This is the peaceful and civilized method of effecting social change. And the Socialist Labor Party stands foursquare for peaceful, civilized settlement of the great social problem of our age. We want to abolish poverty, insecurity, unemployment and war; we do not want totalitarianism in any form, be it Khrushchev's, fascist, Nazi or a domestic adaptation of any of these European models.

And let no one suggest that this is a "subversive" idea. No one can be charged with being "subversive" who follows the constitutional method, which was prescribed by the Founding Fathers -- and the Socialist Labor Party does follow the constitutional method. But, at the same time, the Socialist Labor Party warns the workers that a Socialist victory at the polls will lead to certain reaction and subject them to a bloodbath by a lawless capitalist class, unless they are organized in such a way as to back up their right with their industrially organized might. That is why the Socialist Labor Party, which is seasoned by the experience of more than seventy years in the forefront of the class struggle, places supreme emphasis on economic organization. The only organization that can effectively enforce the Socialist ballot is a union built on industrial lines, embracing the whole working class without regard for sex, color or craft, and guided by the enlightenment of classconsciousness. Socialist Industrial Unionism is the workers' power.

In the organization of the working class along the lines indicated lies the hope of humanity for a free and decent world, a world freed of the war-breeding struggle for capitalist markets, a world in which goods are produced for the use of the producers and not for sale with a view to profit. We want a world in which machines and scientific achievements will become a blessing to multiply our productivity and give us all leisure in which to study, travel and generally enjoy the fruits of our labor in peace and harmony in the universal Brotherhood of Man. Every American who loves liberty and hates despotism should study this program. Fill in the coupon on the bottom of this page and free literature will be sent to you promptly.