The insult “Social Fascist” is often thrown around in marxist circles to deride any form of anti-revolutionary activity: from collusion with reactionary elements, to general bad policy, but that doesn’t do the phrase justice. Social Fascism refers to the liberal tendency to collaborate with bourgeois interest to push policies that actively slow or crush revolutionary action. This definition is extremely important, as the overuse of the phrase “Social Fascism” has diluted its meaning as mentioned before, robbing it of any useful critique. Social Fascism is not when reactionary policies are enacted. Social Fascism necessitates a degree of workers’ advocacy— advocacy that Social Fascist policy proves hypocritical.
First, we must define Social Fascism in detail. Social Fascism is the tendency for the progressive wing of liberal capitalism: the democratic socialists and social democrats, to push policies to reform capitalism as opposed to abolishing it. Democratic Socialists and Social Democrats, who comprise most of the contemporary progressive wing, push for the reform of the current capitalist system as the best way to improve the lives of workers. Reform may seem desirable, as changes are being made that seem to improve the material conditions of the proletariat, but these improvements are completely overshadowed when compared to the consistently worsening condition the proletariat lives in compared to the bourgeoisie. In practice, Social Fascist reform is a false alternative to, rather than a step towards, revolution.
Take, for example, the Democratic Party of the United States. The Democrats, especially the progressive wing, use pro-worker rhetoric to attempt to gain ground with the proletariat, but the policies they routinely choose to enact only hinder true change. The progressives, mainly led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have fallen in line with the establishment democrats in an effort to keep what little sway they have within the liberal framework. The progressives push for reforms that would see the worker’s lives benefit only if the worker falls in line and accepts the hegemony of the bourgeoisie. This includes the push for a higher minimum wage. While this would benefit the working class, it also is an attempt to mollify workers’ militant anger against their continued exploitation. Progressives do not wish to see the end of wage slavery, at least in the immediate future, they only wish to see piecemeal improvements that will quiet the revolutionary process.
Social Fascism is also not just any harmful policy. The Republican party, while also being reactionary in nature, are not “Social Fascists”. Social Fascism requires the acknowledgement that there is a class issue in society, but believe the best route for solving these issues is reforming the system from within, ignoring the very nature of capitalism as a social and economic system. Republicans do not attempt to reform capitalism in the name of the working class. To the contrary, they work against the working class, calling them parasitic, and consistently attack those programs that provide even a scrap of support to the working class. The difference here is both in rhetoric and action. The progressive attempts to quiet the working class through the usage of carrots, while the reactionary liberal uses only the stick. The first can be seen as an enemy within the workers’ movement; the second is just an enemy.
A good historical example of “Social Fascism” would be the social democrats of the Weimar republic, who were strictly anti-revolutionary. The SPD, the leading social democratic party and party in power, saw the uprising of the Spartacist League as a threat to both Germany and the bourgeois order. The Spartacist League of Germany rose to declare a socialist state, and the SPD, instead of working with the revolutionary proletariat movement, authorized the usage of far-right paramilitary Freikorps to crush it. This collaboration with reactionary forces in the stymying of the revolution is the essence of social fascism, as it is the direct collusion of political “progressives” with reactionary elements to stop wider change from occurring.
While the concept is important, overuse leads to many people not understanding its true meaning. For something to be social fascism, it requires there to be a socialist aspect to it. There is real world change incorporated in social fascist policies, but they are too small and spread out to truly fix anything. Such small changes do not reverse the exploitative gears of capitalism, but rather enable them to turn more smoothly-continuing the accumulation of wealth by the bourgeoisie at the cost of the working class. By using the phrase to refer to any adverse policy, Progressives can turn it around and call its usage unserious. In too many leftist circles, it indeed is used unseriously. Ultimately, however, reformism, and progressivism as a whole, are emblematic of Social Fascist tendencies. While the benefits of progressivist movements are tangible, with the creation of certain protections for the working class, they are not meant to stop further destruction of Capitalism– they stand only to make that destruction more acceptable to those being exploited.