To understand why the “progressives” helped manufacture consent for the Iran war, we have to look at social fascist theory. Social fascism is the explanation that the Comintern formulated for why the reformists had led the campaign to murder Rosa Luxemburg, and thereby sabotage Germany’s workers revolution. History has proven this theory correct innumerable times, with the “democratic socialist” assistance in the Iran war effort being the latest example. That the social democrats share guilt for the assault on Iran isn’t a controversial idea within communist circles; but we must confront how much of the left is still willing to give these actors the benefit of the doubt on Iran, or who outright share their position.
The best way to argue against this position is by pointing out that the Mossad was inseparable from the supposedly revolutionary Iran protests. Whatever accusations somebody makes against Iran about its response to the demonstrations, their information has been filtered through the channels the Mossad controls. The onus is on the accusers to show why Israel’s account of the story should be believed, and therefore why we should de facto join with the pro-Zionist side.
Even as the American people react to the war with outrage, and this war escalates to genocidal levels, the social fascists are working to keep the demonizing narratives about Iran alive within our discourse. Their role doesn’t allow them to commit to supporting the resistance against Zionism’s expanding onslaught. This is because as Stalin explained in 1924, this role the social democrats have is to be auxiliaries for the bourgeoisie’s fighting wing, attacking from a “progressive” angle:
…while the decisive battles were in progress, the bourgeoisie needed a fighting organisation, needed fascism; but now that the proletariat is defeated, the bourgeoisie no longer needs fascism and can afford to use “democracy” instead, as a better method of consolidating its victory. Hence, the conclusion is drawn that, the rule of the bourgeoisie has become consolidated, that the “era of pacifism” will be a prolonged one, and that the revolution in Europe has been pigeonholed.
This assumption is absolutely wrong. Firstly, it is not true that fascism is only the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie.
There are indications that the next maneuver of our ruling class will be to put the social fascists into power. And this makes sense, given how much capital has now consolidated its control. Trump 2.0 has been defined by a complete lack of desire by those in power to hide their crimes, and this confidence comes from how our class enemies don’t expect the masses to become organized. The next logical step is for the U.S. empire to put on a “progressive” mask again, potentially in the form of AOC.
The problem is that once the mask has come off, there’s no way to truly go back. If AOC is installed next, the “democratic socialist” brand will collapse as fast as Trump 2.0’s “dissident” image has collapsed. This is the new reality our class enemies must deal with: political scams, as a rule, are harder to sustain than they were in America for the longest time. The American working class has now been in a depression for almost twenty years, starting with the 2008 collapse that they never recovered from. The masses are ready to turn on anybody who gives them false promises to end the wars, and to return prosperity.
As the social fascists experience an ever-greater backlash from their base, we must be ready to bring this base to communism. Which means synthesizing the original Comintern position, where the socdem political scammers are correctly viewed as social fascists, with the softer position that the Comintern would eventually take. In 1935, after fascism had again become the bourgeoisie’s primary tool, Dimitrov concluded that communists need to account for how we reach the social democratic workers:
in countries having Social-Democratic governments, the Communists, by utilizing appropriate individual demands taken from the platforms of the Social-Democratic ministers as a starting point for achieving joint action with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations, can afterwards more easily develop a campaign for the establishment of a united front on the basis of other mass demands in the struggle against the capitalist offensive, against fascism and the threat of war. It must further be borne in mind that, in general, joint action with the Social-Democratic Parties and organizations requires from Communists serious and substantiated criticism of Social Democracy as the ideology and practice of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and untiring, comradely explanation to the Social-Democratic workers of the program and slogans of Communism. In countries having Social-Democratic governments this task is of particular importance in the struggle for a united front.
If we were to call the workers who love Zohran or AOC social fascists, this would of course be ultra-leftist and self-destructive. Where it is appropriate to use the social fascist label, though, is when we are dealing with the very most bad-faith and corrupt actors within the liberal wing of ruling-class politics. Our task is to reveal to these workers why the leaders they’ve been attracted to are really their enemies. Lenin concluded that people will always be “victims of deceit and self-deception in politics, until they learn behind every kind of moral, religious, political, social phrase, declaration and promise to seek out the interests of this or that class or classes. The partisans of reform and betterment will always be fooled by the defenders of the old régime, until they understand that every old institution, no matter how savage and rotten it may seem, is sustained by the forces of this or that dominant class or classes. And there is only one way to break the resistance of these classes, namely, to find in the very society surrounding us, to find and educate and organize for the struggle, those forces which can – and owing to their social situation must – form a power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new.”
Going around insulting regular workers who support social democracy is not the right tactic, and in my experience avoiding such ultra-left behavior is a matter of mastering one’s own temperament. We know where the impulse to put out this anger comes from: a rage against those who are assisting in the project to murder millions for profit. If we can master ourselves, and direct this anger at the collaborators while properly explaining our anger to the workers, we'll be in position to draw the masses away from the lies of the social fascists.
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