Gerry Downing:

Not all fascists are antisemitic. In the 1920s and 30s Italian and Spanish fascists were not anything like as antisemitic as the Nazis.

Jenny Flintoft:

Despite the letter quoted below, SUTR Scotland refused to make a statement saying Zionist flags & propaganda were not welcome on the 2018 march. Horrified at the sight of Zionist flags & banners on the 2017 demo, Jewish anti-racists decided to try & avoid the problem by sending a letter to SUTR Scotland. However their letter was ignored. On the day of the 2018 demo activists resorted to blocking off the Zionists with a mock apartheid wall. This should of course not have been necessary.

Jenny Flintoft:

You don’t have to be an RCG supporter to recognise that over this they are absolutely right & SUTR got it wrong.

Gerry Downing:

The commonly understood meaning of antisemitism today is hatred of and/or discrimination against Jews as Jews. The fact that the term applied to Arabs in the region is irrelevant today. The fact that Jews are not a homogeneous race as such is also irrelevant. The concept of race in human society is false but as a commonly understood term we are obliged to combat those who use the concept to divide the working class.

Trotsky’s understanding of how fascism came to power is very much grounded in the definition of “Bonapartism” contained in Marx’s “18th Brumaire”, a classic study of dictatorship in the 19th century. Marx was trying to explain how dictatorships of “men on horseback” such as Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nephew, can appear to stand suspended above all classes and to act as impartial arbitrator between opposing classes, even though they carry out the wishes of the capitalist ruling class. The capitalist class is small in number and periods of revolutionary crisis depend on these types of seemingly neutral strong men.