Reading group: Race, gender, and the fight against fascism

September 26 to December 19, 2024

Solidarity reading and discussion series

Thursdays every 2 weeks; 8pm ET / 5pm PT, September 26 to December 19, 2024

Since Trump’s election win in 2016, the question of fascism has leaped from being an idiosyncracy of the left to a debate even in liberal circles. Is Trump a fascist? Is Trumpism a fascist movement? Or does it matter – is the US already and always fascist? Is fascism an inherent part of capitalism?

Beyond the dictionary definition of the term, or its application to our contemporary moment, the problem that underlies these questions is whether the rise of Trumpism (and other global variants of the far right) should change how socialists organize.

In this class series we will tackle this big strategic question by studying histories of how socialists have historical defined and fought against fascism, and then measuring these experiences and methods against the different emergences of the far right in our time.

In order to create a focused discussion series about a topic that has generated a lot of socialist theory and history, we decided to focus on the Black anti-fascist tradition. The series begins with a collection of fundamental readings from Marxists debating the original rise of fascism-itself in the 1920s, then draws back to the colonial roots of fascism, to the uses of race and gender in the economies and ideologies of fascism (and capitalism), until we conclude with a discussion of the mass movement character of fascism and how all these problems appear in today’s street and parliamentary politics.

For the final discussion of this class series, we will open up the discussion to a public forum to discuss the concluding question about fascism: and how to fight it? At this panel, participants in the series will present on what we have learned as we studied together, and that we can open this final question of strategy and tactics to a broader discussion.

The other innovation of this discussion series is that we are inviting guest speakers, whose writings we are reading and discussing, to join us to introduce and discuss these topics with us throughout the weeks. Enzo Traverso, author of The Origins of Nazi Violence, will introduce the discussion in week 2, and Bill V Mullen, co-author of The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition will open our discussion in week 3. Presenters for subsequent weeks will be announced soon.

This discussion series is open to all Solidarity members, friends, and others who we invite to join in.

You do not have to commit to the whole 6-week discussion (held every 2 weeks) in order to participate, and you do not have to read all the readings. Each class’s readings are divided into “main” and “supplementary” readings – with main readings being between 20 and 100 pages. Read whatever you’re able; we will begin each discussion with a presentation so all participants can catch up. We have also included movies and podcasts each week so participants who don’t have the time, inclination, or ability to do the readings also have a way to prepare for discussions each week.

Register here. If you have any questions, email info@solidarity-us.org

Week 1: Fundamentals of Marxist thinking about fascism

Thursday September 26th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Main readings (All except those specifically linked below are included in this package, collected from David Beetham’s collection, Marxists in the Face of Fascism.)

Supplementary readings

  • John Riddell, “How did socialists respond to the advent of fascism?” Socialist Project, August 15 2018.

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Week 2: Colonial roots of fascism

Thursday October 10th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Guest presenter: Enzo Traverso, author of The Origins of Nazi Violence

Main readings

  • Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism (Monthly Review, 2000) (pdf download / link to audiobook)
  • Mohammed Elneiam, “Black Americans in the Popular Front against Fascism,” JSTOR Daily, November 12 2020.
  • Enzo Traverso, “Introduction,” from The Origins of Nazi Violence (2002) (PDF download)

Supplementary readings

  • Erick McDuffie, “Toward a Brighter Dawn: Black Women Forge the Popular Front, 1935-1940,” in Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism (Duke University Press, 2011). (PDF download)
  • Thomas Rogers, “The Long Shadow of German Colonialism,” New York Review of Books, March 8 2023. (Permanent link)
  • Alberto Sbacchi, “Racism Italian Style,” Ch 17 in Ethiopia Under Mussolini: Fascism and the Colonial Experience (Zed Books, 1985). PDF download.

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Week 3: Slavery and the economic logics of white supremacy

Thursday October 24th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Guest presenter: Robert Connell, author of “Colonial Myth, Reality & Modernity.”

Main readings

  • Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen, “Premature Black AntiFascism: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “Lynch Law,” and the Conspiracy of Anti-Black Fascism,” in The Black AntiFascist Tradition (Haymarket Books, 2024). (PDF download)
  • Ida B Wells’ “Lynching, Our National Crime” (1909).
  • Barbara Fields’ “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review, No 191, May 1 1990. PDF download.
  • Cedric Robinson, “Racial Capitalism: The Nonobjective Character of Capitalist Development,” in Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (University of North Carolina Press, 2000). PDF download.

Supplementary readings

  • Walter Rodney, “The Imperialist Partition of Africa,” Monthly Review, April 8 1970. Website link.
  • Eric Williams, “The Origin of Negro Slavery,” and “The Development of British Capitalism, 1783-1833,” in Capitalism and Slavery (University of North Carolina Press, 1944). PDF download.

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Week 4: Gender and fascist statecraft

Thursday November 7th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Guest presenter: Cynthia Wright, Associate Professor in School of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies, York University

Main readings

  • Benito Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism” (1932) Website link.
  • Gisela Bock, “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State,” Signs, Spring 1983. (PDF download)
  • Robert Proctor, “The Control of Women,” in Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Harvard Press, 1988) (PDF download)
  • Audra Simpson, “The State is a Man: Theresa Spence, Loretta Saunders and the Gendered Cost of Settler Sovereignty in Canada,” Theory and Event, Vol 19 No 4, 2016. PDF download. (Video of a lecture version of this article)
  • Jules Gill Peterson, “On Killing Trans Children,” The Funambulist, August 2021. Website link.

Supplementary readings

  • Silvia Federici, George Souvlis and Ankica Čakardić, “Feminism and Social Reproduction: An Interview with Silvia Federici” (Salvage magazine, January 2017). Link to website.
  • Barbara Ehrenreich, “Forward to Male Fantasies,” in Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies Vol 1: Women, floods, bodies, history (University of Minnesota Press, 1987) (PDF download)
  • Big Flame, “Give a Baby to the Fuehrer: Women under Hitler,” and “Women Fight Fascism” (Liverpool UK, Big Flame group pamphlet, 1978) (PDF download)

A/V

  • Interview with Anne Rumberger about the far right and abortion, Behind the News with Doug Henwood (Podcast, September 29 2022. Link here – interview starts at 27:00)

Week 5: Racism – a mobilizer in the fascist mass movement

Thursday November 21st, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Guest presenter: Bill V Mullen, co-author of The Black AntiFascist Tradition.

Main readings

  • Daniel Guerin, “The Middle Classes Considered as Fascism’s Mass Base,” in Fascism and Big Business (Pathfinder Press, 1973) (PDF download)
  • George Jackson, “Dear Fay” (April 1970), in Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson (Lawrence Hill Books, 1970); (PDF download) “Analyzing the Correct Method in Combating American Fascism” (1971) [Website link].
  • Kathleen Cleaver, “Racism, Fascism, and Political Murder,” Black Panther, September 14, 1968. (PDF download)
  • Moshe Postone, “Anti-Semitism and National Socialism” (1986) (PDF download)

Supplementary readings

A/V

  • “Final Account” (2020, Dir. Luke Holland, 93 minutes). Download here, 1.2GB, it is an mkv file playable with VLC media player.

Week 6: Currents of fascism in US America today

Thursday December 5th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

(Re)defining fascism

  • Alberto Toscano, “Racial Fascism,” in Late Fascism (Verso, 2023) (PDF download)
  • Shane Burley, “Drain the Swamp,” and “Defining Fascism,” in Fascism Today: What it is and how to end it (AK Press, 2017) (PDF Download)
  • David Renton, “Fascism Today,” and “The Prison of Ideas,” in Fascism: Theory and Practice (Pluto Press, 1999) (PDF download)
  • Enzo Traverso, “Post-Fascism: Fascism as Trans-Historical Concept,” Crisis and Critique, Vol 11, No 1, 2024. (PDF download)

Is Trump a fascist?

Dynamics and assessments of the far right

A/V

  • Twenty-First Century Fascism in the US with Richard Seymour and Nikhil Pal Singh (Salvage Live, June 15 2021. YouTube link)

Panel: …and how to fight it: Ending fascist racism in Trump’s US America

Thursday December 19th, 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Histories of anti-fascist struggle

  • Les Evans, “Alliances and the Revolutionary Party: The Tactic of the United Front and How It Differs from the Popular Front,” SWP Education for Socialists, October 1971. (Link to PDF)
  • Paul Saba, “Fighting Fascism and the Ku Klux Klan: Lessons from the New Communist Movement,” Viewpoint Magazine, October 10 2017. (PDF download / website link)

Strategies and tactics in anti-fascism

  • Cristien Storm and Kate Boyd, “Antifascist Organizing and If You Don’t They Will’s ‘no. NOT EVER.’ Project,” in Alyosha Goldstein and Simón Ventura Trujillo, For Antifascist Futures (Common Notions, 2022) (EPUB download)
  • Katie Feyh, “The real threat to our democratic rights: Review of No Free Speech for Fascists,” Tempest Magazine, January 3 2022.
  • Mark Bray, “Trump and Everyday Antifascism beyond Punching Nazis,” Roar Magazine, January 3 2017. (Link to website)

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