 Lenin said that capitalism is horror without end and I think today obviously we can see what this means in terms of the horrors that we see kind of unleashed upon society in terms of wars, terrorism and austerity and so forth. And obviously there's a wave of kind of racism and xenophobia and bigotry where it's like capitalism has kind of opened up a Pandora's box if you like of horrors upon society as it goes into crisis and this has obviously led to a growing concern amongst a layer of people about the rise of the far right. People look at the victories of the Brexit campaign or of Trump and the US and certain people draw a kind of relatively superficial conclusion I would say that this represents somehow that everyone's a racist now or that this is the rise of a new fascism and so forth. And obviously we saw in Austria the far right candidate Hoffa coming close to winning with 46% and there's concerns that Le Pen, the far right candidate in France could win in the elections next year there in France. And a lot of the time this has been used to justify actually support on the left for the so-called liberal or progressive section of the capitalists and their candidates. So we see for example a lot of confused layers on the left in America for example saying you have to support Clinton because Trump's a fascist and therefore we need to somehow get in the progressive candidate of Clinton instead of this fascist of Trump. And we have to say well look we share the concern and obviously the disgust towards figures like Trump and the kind of bigotry and the racism and so forth and obviously concern of the potential rise in hate crimes and racist acts that have been seen in the wake of Brexit and so forth. But we also have to remain sober and level headed in our analysis and not draw these kind of superficial conclusions that suddenly everyone's a racist or that Trump is a fascist. Gotta have a sense of proportion because for us you know these political labels they have a definite meaning they're not something to just be bandied about they have a very definite and scientific meaning and we are scientific socialists that's what Marxism aims to be a scientific analysis of society and therefore we have to look at these these labels in a scientific way and not just throw them around frivolously and actually understand what fascism really means in a kind of historical sense in a materialist sense in a in a real social sense it's not just a a catch all label for anyone who's a racist or any party that has certain racist policies. We've got to remember not to confuse the the part for the whole in the sense that yes obviously racism is a part of a fascist ideology but not everyone who is a racist is a fascist. Fascism is much much more than that and we shouldn't throw these labels around as I say frivolously because it actually acts to disorientate and to confuse and to miseducate the movement fundamentally. It acts if you go around calling everyone every every far right group that that springs into to life if you could go around calling every one of these the the potential rise of fascism it's kind of like the boy who cried wolf you're you're constantly warning about this fascism that's coming about but it actually disarms and paralyzes potentially the movement at that time when when a real kind of genuine threat to society rises up and and it fundamentally it misunderstands what is actually behind the rise of these far right and extremist parties and leaders that we're seeing it fundamentally misunderstands what the vote for Trump or Le Pen or or UKIP or any of this really represents which is that it's it's not suddenly that everyone's racist or that this is somehow the rise of fascism but what it represents really is the the failure of the status quo the collapse of the the kind of liberal center ground and also the failure of the the left and the so-called left leaders you saw in in America really you had the potential for a for a strong left candidate to come to to power in America if Sanders had had run it could have actually beaten and actually taken many of the votes from those who went towards Trump and and obviously even the bourgeois themselves have admitted how Clinton was really the worst possible candidate to put forwards in the sense that she represented everything that people were disgusted by in terms of the establishment and the rich and the elite and the one percent and so forth in France you see how only a few years ago you had Hollande coming in with a with a kind of tax the rich anti austerity program as the socialist candidate but obviously his failure and his capitulation to actually carry out that program has led to the rise of Le Pen and even in Britain here we see how UKIP now have just elected in Paul Nuttle as their new leader whose whose main vision for UKIP is he says is actually to become a party of the working class not to appeal to the kind of backwards Shia Tories that the UKIP's base themselves on in the past actually to base themselves on these these kind of left behind towns and communities that voted for Brexit as a kind of rebellion against the elite and the establishment these are the people that Paul Nuttle and UKIP want to appeal to now these Labour voters or these Labour heartlands that have been left behind and obviously there are kind of genuine fascist layers within within these movements but again we have to have a sense of proportion these are quite small and relatively insignificant like in the UK you've seen the English Defence League but the reality is yes they have a fascist ideology to them but they're not a mass movement by any means they're normally having to bus in people from across the country and even then when the when they arrive in these towns they're obviously met with much greater force from the Labour movement and the local communities and similarly in the US where you've had the so-called alt-right and not a particularly scientific term itself very kind of heterogeneous movement but nevertheless it's a very small one as well you see these videos of this alt-right conference that was taking place in America a few weeks ago where the main speaker was kind of alluding to lots of kind of fascist rhetoric and so forth but the actual audience was tiny just a couple of hundred not even thousands or the hundreds of thousands that it's made out to be but just a couple of hundred people and even within that you see in the video there's quite a lot looking uncomfortable as those around them start throwing up Nazi salutes and so forth and so we've got to have a sense of proportion about the real kind of fascist layer that is there and see in fact what is the real reason behind the the rise of these kind of far-right and so-called populist movements and go back I think to look at what Leon Trotsky wrote on question of fascism in the 30s when you had genuine fascist movements arising and what you see is that Trotsky outlined above all that went from you know when he was analyzing in Italy or Spain or Germany the rise of fascism what he explained above all is that fascism is a genuine mass movement it's it's it's made up not just of of kind of the strong men fascist leaders like Hitler and Mussolini but but actually that it has a mass space to it and and at that mass space exists in what he called the frenzied petty bourgeoisie and lumpen elements basically layers of society the kind of middling layers of society like the the ruined shopkeepers and the peasantry and and the professionals the white collar workers who've been ruined by by the crisis and very quickly gone from being kind of a privileged layer in society or a reasonable income layer in society to suddenly thrown on to the scrap heap and they combined with the kind of lumpenized elements the layer that's always been kind of thrown on to the scrap heap by capitalism these D-classed elements that exist in society as a result of capitalism's kind of permanent inability to provide jobs and so well these elements were were grouped together and and actually given life given given a kind of a sense of purpose was but was what Trotsky analyzed this is this you had a genuine mass movement of these layers because there's always been if you like under capitalism there's always been gangs and thugs who've been kind of grouped together and empowered by by the ruling class to terrorize the labor movement to terrorize working class communities you saw in the 1905 Russian Revolution for example pogroms organized by by the ruling class and known as the and these groups of thugs known as the black hundreds that went around terrorizing communities and even today as I say you have groups like the EDL and Britain First and so forth that they go around trying to terrorize working class communities and ethnic communities and and obviously we've also seen how the ruling class will use often throughout history kind of paramilitary groups in particularly in the ex-colonial countries in Colombia for example you have paramilitary gangs used to attack trade unions to attack the labor movement and carry out these kind of extrajudicial killings of trade union leaders in Indonesia you had these sort of gangs used in 1965-66 to conduct anti-communist purges by the but in in in in alliance with the the the Sahato government or or dictatorship really and and even in the end at the end of the First World War in Germany you had the beginnings of Nazism around the Freikorps so these kind of paramilitary gangs of war veterans used to attack the labor movement and the the socialists there but the difference with fascism is that it actually was a mass movement that didn't just rely on on these kind of gangs but actually as I say took together the the destitute and the ruined middle classes and organized them and used them really as a battering ram against the working class and against the the labor movement now the bourgeois have always if you like had to lean on on that kind of petty bourgeois layer throughout society lean on lean on the masses because obviously the bourgeois themselves the 1% if you like are obviously a tiny proportion of society they can't carry out their program simply with the numbers that they have themselves as a class and so they've always had to lean on the masses and particularly the middle classes in the in the French revolutions the when you had a progressive bourgeoisie if you like that was that was actually carrying out a progressive program to to abolish feudalism and and abolish all these kind of fetters in society the the bourgeois the rising bourgeois at that time lent on the the masses to carry out this progressive program of the abolition of the monarchy and the feudal order and they appealed to that layer obviously with with with demands for you know liberty fraternity and equality but and in the heyday of capitalism that followed in the 19th century the the the ruling class leans again on the on the middle class to carry out kind of reforms and this is like the high point if you like of liberal capitalism when when when liberalism and reformism were able to actually expand the middle class and offer certain rights and reforms to to this layer but what we see in the in the in the beginning of the death agony of capitalism and the decline of capitalism is that now this the the ruling class becomes senile and decrepit and and cannot allow and capitalism as it goes into crisis can no longer afford these kind of reforms you have a polarization taking place in society a collapse of this liberal center ground and even the the kind of democratic rights that have been won and struggled for by the ruling class are kind of unaffordable from the point of view of the the capitalist the the freedom of the press the freedom to organize and to vote and instead what capitalism requires in this period you see is an actual smashing of these rights a smashing of the organized working class of the of the working class and its organizations basically capitalism is you know requires these organizations to be to be to be shattered in order to push conditions and wages even below kind of subsistence levels and it uses the this petty bourgeois mass this this middle class ruined layer in society as a as basically a hammer to do this smashing of against the working class in its organization to to terrorize and to atomize the working class and this really we have to emphasize was and still is kind of the primary role of fascism historically was is a desperate attempt really by the ruling class to survive and and and the point was that the Trotsky pointed out that this fascist movement always in everywhere only ever came to power on the back of the failure of a revolutionary movement to offer a way out in for example in Italy where you had Mussolini he only came to power on the back of a failure of the working class to take power in in the the factory occupations of 1920 when you had across Italy mass movement of the working class that occupied the factories and and could have taken power Trotsky pointed out the only thing stopping them was the the vacillation and the cowardice of the reformist leaders who were at the head of this movement in the in the Socialist Party and similarly in Germany you only see Hitler coming to power not after one attempt but many attempts of the working class to take power in 1918 in 1923 and in fact even even in the late 20s and early 30s Trotsky points out the working class was still enormously strong it's the the organizations of the working class in the Socialist Party and the Communist Party together between them they had millions of supporters and and and hundreds of thousands of members with with a huge influence and together if they've been united they could have actually easily broken the the Nazi movement and and kept them at bay but the problem was Trotsky pointed out that they were they were completely unable and unwilling to do this for for two reasons one the Socialists were the Socialist leaders in particular placed their faith in the so-called lesser evil of the of the the capitalists and and the bourgeoisie they they you know they they were rather having a burning then then and voting in advocating a vote for that for the so-called lesser evil basically then then then actually organize a movement against the fascists and Hitler and and and then on the other side you had the ultra leftism of the Communist leaders of the Stalinists who who basically were in what what what was called the third period of Stalinism where it was incredibly ultra left very sectarian and they went around saying the real biggest danger was not the not the actual fascists but they called the social fascists they said the social democracy were the real evil that had to be smashed and and first Hitler would come to power and then it would be the task of the of the Communists Trotsky pointed out if if you'd had an actual united front between these organizations then they actually together could have could have halted the the fascist movement in its in its March and and instead what you had was because of the the ultra leftism of the Stalinists and the the capitulations and the reformism of the social Democrats the result was as in Hitler's own word he came to power without so much as breaking a pane of glass and and it was really this Trotsky pointed out this failure of a revolutionary leadership to offer a way out or failure of the absence of a revolutionary leadership full stop that meant that the petty bourgeois layers would would having seen that kind of failure of the revolution would swing behind the fascists looking for for some sort of order and and end to the the kind of chaos and the the instability in society Trotsky pointed out that the petty bourgeois is as as Marxist have always said this middle layer is not a an independent class in society in the sense that it sits between the working class and the capitalists they're neither outright capitalists who are able to you know exploit a working class for themselves but neither are they part of the working class that has to sell its labor power in or in exchange for wages and therefore this class has a very independent kind of as it doesn't have a rather an independent class interests it's it's it can swing between the interests of the two major classes in society the working class and the capitalists and and by its very nature as a as a as a class it's very scattered and very isolated and and very individualistic and not involved in in common production in the factories in the offices in the workplace doesn't have its own organizations in terms of the the trade unions and the political parties and and and therefore doesn't have the same kind of class consciousness as a as a that the working class has its same common interests and the same organizations like the working class has formed throughout history and instead you see as I say it's vacillates between the two and on the one hand is not part of the working class but on the other hand is crushed by the real kind of capitalists by monopoly capitalism that obviously smashes and crushes small businesses and and and so forth and and what Trotsky pointed out is that if given a revolutionary lead then the the the middling layers the petty bourgeois could swing behind revolution and and and behind the working class and could be won over to revolution and indeed you saw that in the Russian revolution the fact that the the Bolsheviks came to power because they were able to win over this layer by putting you know by having a movement led by the working class that also answered the questions that the peasantry and the and the soldiers for example had they could they actually won over these layers and were able to to win them over to the idea of revolution but in the absence of this in the absence of a revolutionary lead then this layer would swing behind reaction as I say demanding an end to the the kind of chaos in instability that we see in these periods and and that's really what you saw in Germany above all else where this there was this petty bourgeois layer was completely ruined by by the crisis of in the Weimar Republic by the hyperinflation that was taking place throughout the 20s and and as I say it went from being a very relatively privileged white collar layer to to being a kind of part of this mass unemployment and the the fascists appeal to this layer by by actually promising to fight against the kind of crushing domination of monopoly capitalism hence why you know that as a movement is called national socialism it was aiming to provide stability and and some sort of justice to this layer and Trotsky said how this layer this in this layer basically the the fascists they they they untied the arms of the scattered masses he said and and organized that movement out of human dust giving them the illusion of being an independent force so this is what fascism promised to this layer but the reality was was far different as a movement fascism was actually backed by the very big business and finance capital that it claimed to be to be opposing and was really a last desperate attempt by the ruling class in the face of the threat of Bolshevism and revolution it was really a last throw of the dice and and one that was not done without reluctance from the ruling class they they're not willing to to hand over power to these kind of upstarts that fascism creates it's not they're not willing to hand over power to these people lightly much prefer to have a kind of reliable member of the ruling class from the aristocracy from the military to lead these kind of movements but what you see with fascism that actually it's these so-called self-made men like Hitler like Mussolini who aren't kind of traditionally part of the the kind of the establishment and so forth are part of the the aristocracy and so forth these these are the layers that fascism has at its head and and the ruling class is unwilling to really hand over power to these unreliable leaders but nevertheless does so as a last throw of the dice and that and in this respect something like the Pinochet coup in Chile is different where Pinochet was part of the army he was part of these generals and these reliable parts of the establishment and and and there wasn't such a mass movement kind of at the you know around Pinochet it was much more based on the institutions and the armed forces of the of the state and and and the difference with with fascism so it goes far beyond just the rule of the state the this kind of bonapartist use of the military and the police but actually goes much further takes over the whole of society the universities the media all of these kind of institutions become accumulated in the hands of of the fascist state and and and really takes over the whole of society in this respect and but what you see is that once fascism has come into power it actually dispenses with that mass space that's kind of got it there in the first place and and becomes really an extreme form of of Bonapartism an unstable regime that's resting on repression and and on the the police state and it rids itself then of the the genuine ideologues of the movement as well you see how in in Germany for example you had the brown shirts the essay around Hitler who were genuine believers in the ideology of fascism in the sense of they genuinely believed in the in the cause of national socialism that there could be this struggle against the monopoly capitalists but but Hitler actually dispensed with this layer once in power in in what was famously called the night of the long knives in 1934 where where this layer the of the brown shirt leaders were basically liquidated and and it came after that fascism much more a force much more concentrated through the state apparatus and and the SS instead Hitler's kind of personal bodyguard and and similarly in Spain you see the move away from the the phalanges to the kind of original real fascist ideologues in around Franco you see a move after 1939 when when Franco comes to power away from these people much more towards technocrats and the kind of Catholics of the the opus day sects and so forth much more based on these layers and dispenses with the with the genuine believers in fascism if you like and becomes more of a Bonapartist regime this as I say an inherently unstable regime and one that is really out of control of the ruling class itself and and you see for that reason why for example in Germany you see attempts to actually remove Hitler who he's he's he represented as I say this this desperate attempt by the ruling class to keep away Bolshevism and communism but in the process they lost control of the situation and and tried to regain it actually through even attempted assassinations against Hitler in the in the so-called Operation Valkyrie 1944 and and these kind of episodes show why really I think the ruling class would be unwilling to go down the path of fascism again today because they've had their fingers burnt by these bad experiences they as I say they much prefer a kind of reliable member of the ruling class and and the use of Bonapartism or kind of military rule when they when when they can no longer use democracy of course that is but but they can also see today the the kind of the dangerous response that actually fascists elicit in amongst the masses amongst the working class for example in Greece you had the the rise of the Golden Dawn a genuine fascist movement that did go around terrorizing the labor movement terrorizing demonstrations and an ethnic communities and so forth but what you saw was actually the when when they did carry out killings against left-wing activists the actually it created a enormous response from the labor movement from the masses you had huge demonstrations coming out against the Golden Dawn and and ones that were very radical in other words these these kind of fascist groups were actually causing a mass movement that was that was dangerous from the point of view of the ruling class and for that reason the the government the not the series of government but the the new democracy one before that ended up actually locking away the the leaders of the Golden Dawn and putting them putting them in jail because basically these were kind of rabid dogs who they they were out of control and they didn't want to to give these people too much too much of a leash if you like too much of a long leash and and and so I think for these reasons you know at the moment at the least the fascists are kept kept at bay by the ruling class and it's not to say that in the future they won't be used as some sort of auxiliary in a reactionary movement but at the moment the the the ruling class unwilling to go down that path for fear obviously that these they can actually invoke a much bigger response from the left and from the working class against against these kind of fascist groups but really I'd say the main reason why fascism is not on the cars today in the sense of a genuine mass movement of the the nature of the type that we've seen in in Germany or Italy and Spain in the the 1920s and 30s the reason why it's fundamentally different today is there's been a fundamental change in the balance of class forces in society nowadays you see that the middle class which is again being kind of crushed by capitalism by the crisis but now you see the middle class actually being drawn much more closely towards the working class you see it being proletarianized if you like and and these layers that used to be kind of white collar privileged layers in society now you're actually seeing them much more joining the ranks of the labor movement and forming trade unions and going on strike and hadn't swine and even in Britain for example you have teachers lecturers and even obviously junior doctors and lawyers and so forth actually now coming to joining the labor movement taking strike action and being much closer to the rest of the working class in this respect and in many respects being part of the working class being proletarianized by this crisis as I say it's not to deny the idea that small fascist groups like the EDL still exist and where they do kind of organize and come out onto the streets they have to be met with with the force of the organized working class you know we can't rely on on Tory politicians or the police and the the bourgeois courts and the law to either the bourgeois state cannot be relied upon to stop the these kind of fascist gangs and obviously you actually see a lot of the time it's the police who are kind of protecting these groups and allowing them to march through town but we have to actually meet them on the streets in the way that for example Mosley and his gang of fascists in Britain were met down the road from here and in Cable Street in 1936 by the organized working class by a united front of the of the of the local community alongside the trade unions the Communist Party the Labour Party all of these came out in force to basically stop Mosley and the fascists marching through the East End and terrorizing the communities there and and as I say in Germany in 1929 to 33 Trotsky emphasized that again a united front of the Socialists and the the Communists could have easily defeated the fascists and smashed the the Nazis but but because of the the betrayals on both sides particularly the the ultra leftism of the Stalinists you had fascism coming to power without any resistance at all today as I say the immediate threat is not of fascism or even really of Bonapartism in the sense of a kind of military reaction all of these are being held back mainly by the the strength of the working class and the radicalization now exists that exists amongst workers and youth and really what we would say is that the biggest problem today is is the missing subjective factor as Trotsky called it in in his program of the the fourth international he said it's he said in in this the the transitional program as it's known he said it's really the crisis of humanity can be reduced in the ultimate analysis to a crisis of leadership and that the conditions for revolution were there the objective conditions in terms of the technology and the wealth in society but also in terms of consciousness he said consciousness was not only ripe but the the conditions have become right rotten in the sense that because of the failure of a revolutionary leadership to actually take advantage of these conditions and and offer a revolutionary way out consciousness had gone gone past and and and people had kind of lost faith in the idea of revolution and you've seen the rise then of these rotten symptoms within society of fascism and and so forth and and the same situation is taking place today where the conditions are clearly ripe in the in the sense of radicalization is taking place but what's lacking is that is again this subjective factor of leadership and for that reason you see these swings quite violent swings in public opinion to the right and to the left and and we must not lose sight of that fact that this isn't a one-way process that's there's not like it's solely a swing to the the far right that's taking place in society there's a polarization and there's a corresponding move to the left as well we've seen obviously the rise of series are in Greece much more prominent than the the rise of golden dawn we've seen the rise of Podemos in Spain of Sanders in in the US reclaiming the word socialism putting it back on the agenda and similarly obviously Corbyn here in Britain we've got a good look at those developments and not just beat the drums about the threat of fascism and highlight really that what's missing what is lacking in this whole situation is a revolutionary leadership with a bold socialist program we need as as Trotsky said a sword and a shield in the sense that you need a the shield of the organized working class the labor movement coming out and meeting these groups where they do come out onto the streets meeting them with with force with you know blocking the path of these people to march through the streets but on the other hand also a sword an actual program that offers a solution to the to the causes of racism and causes of bigotry in the first place provide an actual answer to the questions of job and housing and and health care and so forth because the reality is that the so-called lesser evil of the the liberal establishment figures or the the so-called lefts these these people don't offer a solution to these problems they don't offer a way out onto and an answer to the actual problems faced by the working class in terms of jobs and housing and so forth and and unless therefore you remove that kind of fertile ground upon which racism and so forth in xenophobia thrive unless you remove that fertile ground and offer something to the to the rust belt you know states in in the US or the the kind of left behind scarred communities in Britain unless you solve the problems facing facing these these parts of the country these parts of society these parts of the working class unless you solve that fundamentally you'll always have racism and xenophobia and so forth rearing their ugly head in other words the only real solution to to the kind of rise of the far right that we see today is to put an end to the kind of rotten capitalist system and the failed status quo that have led to the led to the the rise today and in that respect we need above all to end as I say end the capitalist system and have a revolution in Britain and internationally I'll leave it there