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Jim Farmelant wrote: > It's not just the suppression of working class organizations, > since that sort of thing has often occurred in bourgeois > democracies, for instance, the United States. What, I > think sets fascism apart, is that this suppression is > carried out with little or no regards for the usual > bourgeois norms concerning the rule of law. In his discussion of the Finnish far-right nationalist movement in the 20s and 30s, the Finnish historian Matti Klinge notes that whereas a part of the nationalist right was of the (perhaps more familiar) radical "law-and-order" type fascism that opposed "rotten parliamentarism", there was a "moderate" wing too, which pretty soon ditched dreams about "Greater Finland" and irredentist propaganda on East Karelia and agaist the Russians, but still wanted a strong leader who could intervene on the part of the "whole people", e.g. when issues of "majority dictatorship" were jeopardising the unity of the nation. The middle classes (especially students) were to implement this change, as they were seen to be above politics. What these moderate fascists had in mind in particular was the need to "heal the people" after the 1918 civil war between Reds and Whites, where 1,2% of the population had perished. They were in favour of large-scale nationalisations, and called their ideology "state socialism" (and at some point "national socialism"). To effect this "healing" they, instead of aiming to suppress the workers' organisations (like their more radical colleagues, and the average Finnish bourgeois politicians of the time), actually advocated that the social democrats should be allowed to join the government; they also advocated benefits for the workers to show that a unified nation state was in their interest too. They didn't call for abolishing the parliament completely, but wanted to complement it with corporatist structures. One of the main ideologists of this group, Yrjö Ruutu, joined the social democrats in 1937, and, after the 2nd WW, the SKDL (the CP-led front organisation). ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
