THE SOCIAL BASIS OF A FASCIST STATE

Jose Ma. Sison

I am deeply pleased to be invited by the Philippine Social Science Council to participate in this forum on state
violence and to speak specifically on the social basis of a fascist state in the context of explaining the anatomy of
state violence in the Philippine experience.
I share with you the hope that in this forum we, as social scientists, can shed light on the continuing trend of
violence and formulate some guidelines by which the aspirations for national liberation, democracy, justice and
prosperity can be realized. -
However, I have to concentrate on my assigned topic - my share in the structure of this forum.

I. Fascism as World Phenomenon

As the great Lenin pointed out, in extending the Marxist critique of capitalism to a critique of modern
imperialism, monopoly capitalism is the highest and final stage of capitalism. It is moribund capitalism.
By its own laws of motion, capitalism suffers from a recurrent and ever worsening crisis of overproduction. To
preserve the exploitative relations of production, the monopoly capitalist class sheds off the trappings of bourgeois
democracy, adopts an open rule of terror and launches wars of aggression to redivide the world. Interimperialist war
leads to social revolution.
The first general crisis of capitalism in the 20th century resulted in World War I and the birth of the first
socialist state in Russia. It was followed by the second general crisis which would spawn a series of fascist states in
Europe and Japan. These terrorist and aggressive states would cause the outbreak of World War H. This global war
would further lead to the rise of several socialist states arid the widespread national liberation movements in the
colonies and semicolonies.
Since the establishment of the first fascist state in Italy in 1922, similar states subsequently emerging in Europe
and Japan had come to be called fascist. Basic and essential similarities or features have made the general term
"fascist state."
The ruling clique headed by an autocrat, the grandiloquent leader figure, had risen to power or fortified its rule
by taking a rabid anticommunist and chauvinist line and thereby getting the support of the big bourgeoisie , and
other reactionary forces, including the landlord class. .
The coercive apparatuses of the state, often in collaboration with the armed gangs of the fascist party, were
used to wipe out bourgeois democratic rights and to destroy the Communist Party, the communist-led trade unions
and all other democratic forces.
I To gain a mass following or create the illusion of having one, the fascist clique engaged in revolutionary
phrasemongering and stealing phrases from the revolutionary movement while attacking and suppressing with '
brute force the communists, the working class and other democratic forces. When already in power, the clique ;
completed the process of eliminating its opponents within the ruling class and among the people.
The big bourgeoisie was satisfied and happy with the fascist state for so long as the working class remained
under discipline and repression; and public works and military-industrial contracts were highly profitable and the
wars of aggression were still successful.
The fascist state was the outgrowth and narrowing of the monopoly bourgeois state. It was a manifestation of
the inability of the ruling class to rule in the old way with embellishments of bourgeois democracy. It vas a reaction
to the growth of the proletarian revolutionary movement under conditions of grave political and economic crisis of
the ruling system.
In the aftermath of World War II, the world capitalist system was sicker and weaker than at any time before but
the U.S. emerged as the No. 1 capitalist power and launched the anticommunist cold war against the socialist
countries and the national liberation movements in colonies and semicolonies.
The world capitalist system has been on its most prolonged and deep-going crisis. This is its third general crisis.
But the U.S. has so far avoided becoming an outright fascist state despite the recurrent and worsening economic
crisis and wars of aggression. The U.S. has been able to afford the trappings of democracy at home because it has
continuously benefited from imperialist plunder at a rate never known by its capitalist predecessor – Great Britain.
But U.S. monopoly capitalism has been instigating the establishment of fascist regimes in client-states or
semicolonies under its sway in Asia, Africa and Latin America whenever it becomes mortally afraid of a
revolutionary mass movement surging forward under conditions of severe social crisis.
The ruling cliques in neocolonial and semifeudal states that are fascist enjoy the support and are tools of both
the US monopoly bourgeoisie and the domestic comprador big bourgeoisie. As in Europe and Japan in the past,
fascism in -the Third World today is the tyrannical rule of the big bourgeoisie.
The fascist ruling cliques are usually military cliques grabbing power either from elected civilian leaders or
from their militarist predecessors. They use the slogans of rabid, anti-communism to cover up their role as stooges
of U.S. imperialism.
The fascist ruling cliques are themselves bureaucrat capitalists who use their public office to amass assets in
capital and land and climb the social ladder within the unchanged ruling system. Bureaucrat capitalists in a
neocolonial and semifeudal society are a special section of the comprador big bourgeoisie. When they turn fascist,
the bureaucrat-capitalists are supreme both in exercising the political power of the comprador big bourgeoisie and in
getting economic advantage for themselves.
The fascist ruling cliques usually adopt an autocratic form of government even as they present themselves as
champions of democracy. They use the ideology of anti-communism and national security to eliminate their
political opponents; repress the people, especially the toiling masses; and launch brutal campaigns of suppression
against communists and the revolutionary mass movement.

II. The Fascist State Under Marcos

Marcos came from the middle class and climbed his way to the top in the neocolonial state through elections –
from being a congressman through being a senator and the senate president to being the president of the Philippines.
In the process of political climbing, he also climbed socially through the trickery of bureaucrat capitalism. He
used the public offices that he occupied to accumulate assets in capital and land by cutting into business transactions
and facilitating the grant of business privileges to private entities. And he developed his links with the US and other
transnational firms and with big compradors and landlords who were to finance his presidential campaign.
As soon as he became president, he himself became his own Secretary of National Defense for some time to
make sure that the Armed Forces of the Philippines was firmly under his control and was to be run by his military
favorites. He had cultivated the public image of having been a USAFFE military officer and a bemedalled hero of
World War II.
Even as pre-fascist president for seven years, he had excelled as the top bureaucrat capitalist and did not
hesitate to use openly lawful and discreetly unlawful means to enrich himself and his clique and to outmaneuver or
bump off his political opponents.
When he got himself reelected through scandalously foul means in 1969, public outrage was high, the ruling
system was going conspicuously into a new level of crisis and the revolutionary mass movement was on the upsurge.
Obviously, he had a complete understanding of the. Philippine state as a client of the United States and as a
joint class dictatorship of the big compradors and landlords. As top bureaucrat capitalist, he considered himself
superior to the super-rich elite of big compradors and landlords and yet he found it unbearable to be on the way out
of power and derided as the ignominiously most corrupt and brutal figure in the history of the neo-colonial state.
He was still in power and had developed a strong grip on the armed forces. He could play on the anticommunist
fears of the U.S. and the local reactionary classes and could build up the armed forces. He could offer the false
promise of reforms through a constitutional convention, which would be the very legalistic device to prolong his
rule beyond the limits set by the 1935 Constitution and to deprive the people of their basic democratic rights.
He could physically attack the revolutionary movement as well as his intrasystematic opponents and critics and
blame the communists for his own brutal acts. And he did everything to rationalize his proclamation of martial law
and usurpation of absolute and supreme authority over the government and the people.
By carrying out his coup in 1972, he narrowed the joint class dictatorship of the big compradors and landlords
into his personal dictatorship – an autocracy. He unleashed 'the armed forces against all active and potential
opponents and against the people.
The U.S. supported the Marcos fascist state completely and all the way in exchange for more imperialist
privileges. The comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class also supported the fascist state for so long as it
went on a rampage against the communists and the revolutionary mass movement and could get ever increasing
amounts of foreign loans to cover deficits in balance of payments, foreign trade and government budget.
In pursuit of pseudo-development, the fascist regime went on a spending splurge on infrastructure projects,
tourism facilities and other nonproductive or remotely productive projects. The foreign loans allowed an ever
increasing portion of tax revenues to be used for military buildup and campaigns of suppression.
Then in the late seventies, foreign loans could be gotten only at far higher interest and more onerous terms. Still
further, in the early eighties, foreign loans would become scarce even at the most stringent terms. The scarcity of
foreign exchange and the resultant crisis made most of the big comprador-landlords resent the grabbing operations
of Marcos and his cronies.
The economic and financial crisis in 1983 coincided with the outrageous assassination of Benigno S. Aquino, Jr.
who had thought of coming home on time for the crisis to shake the fascist regime and for the electoral opposition
to make a headway. The rapid interaction of political and economic crisis resulted in a turbulent situation.
The US started to distance itself from the fascist puppet regime. Most sections of the comprador big
bourgeoisie and landlord class drew away from the regime. The legal democratic mass movement surged forward at
an unprecedented rate. In view .of dramatic assaults by the people's army, Marcos himself was compelled in 1985 to
admit that the revolutionary armed struggle had grown in strength instead of being quelled by the fascist state.
The staging of the snap election in 1986 only served to shake the fascist regime from the foundation to the
rafters. The electoral fraud and terrorism moved the people and all legal and illegal opposition organizations to
conduct a converging offensive on the regime through gigantic mass actions.
The Catholic Church, previously critical of the most flagrant human rights violations but on the whole
supportive of the fascist regime, advanced to a position of total rejection of this fascist regime through the Catholic
Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) pastoral letter issued after the snap election. Marcos himself bungled
the contradictions between the Ver-Ramos and Enrile-Ramos factions within the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Thus was set the final stage for the overthrow of the fascist dictator Marcos on February 22 to 25. He was
overthrown by a combination of military revolt and people's uprising. The U.S. which had been proposing a series
of compromise formulas between the Marcos and the Aquino forces, decided to do its own share of making Marcos
fall.

III. The Possible Emergence of the Fascist State

Marcos' propensity for puppetry, despotism and corruption coincided with and aggravated the objectively
worsening socio-economic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system.
This worsening crisis provided the objective basis for the autocratic initiative of Marcos and the rise and long
duration of the fourteen-year fascist rule. The fascist dictatorship was the outgrowth of the U.S.-dominated big
comprador-landlord state in crisis.
The root causes of the fascist dictatorship are U.S. monopoly capitalism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
So long as these remain, the reemergence of the fascist dictatorship is a strong possibility.
It is presumptuous and blind for the U.S. imperialists and the local reactionaries to claim that the ascendance of
Mrs. Aquino to the presidency has made a peaceful revolution and preempted the armed revolution of the people.
The ruling system remains in grave crisis. The same ruling classes ride roughshod over the people and the two
major factions among them are in sharp contradiction. The same AFP which was the main oppressive instrument of
the fallen Marcos regime remains intact and continues to oppress the people.
The legal forces of the national democratic movement and the armed revolutionary movement of the
Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front and the entire
Filipino people are intact and continue to grow in strength because of foreign and feudal domination.
The basic problems of the people cannot be solved by the Aquino government if it is the mere instrument of the
U.S. and such local reactionary classes as the big compradors and landlords.
The contradictions between the Marcos and the Aquino forces are still in the process of development and are
liable to break out in violent incidents within one, two or three years.
Compared to the opposition in the past under the Marcos fascist dictatorship, the Marcos forces are far stronger
today because of their financial assets within and outside the country, their armed followers within and outside the
AFP and their political agents who are at every level of political activity.
In various ways, the Marcos forces are making a show of force all over the country. But they are likely to make
their most serious moves in the future when the Aquino government can be discredited for failure to solve the basic
problems of the people – the very problems left by Marcos.
Although it remains intact as a pro-U.S. and reactionary force, the AFP is increasingly an arena of struggle for
at least three blocs and the Aquino bloc. The AFP remains seriously divided. y
If the Aquino government is to face up to the basic problems of the people and to solve them, it ought to
encourage and participate in a broad democratic alliance of the people – including the revolutionary forces instead
of submitting to pressures of the U.S., the Enrile-Ramos bloc and the Marcos forces to take a rapidly anti-
communist line or succumbing to the temptation of taking this line. The Aquino government ought to encourage and
participate in a broad democratic alliance of the people – including the revolutionary forces – in order to face up to
the basic problems of the people and solve them.
The Aquino government can continue to get the support of the people only by completing the process of
dismantling the structures of the fascist dictatorship and pursuing the anti-imperialist and antifeudal line towards
national liberation and democracy in substance and form.
The reimposition of fascist dictatorship by any big comprador-landlord faction or militarist clique on the people
will be lethal to the ruling system, not to the revolutionary movement. The problem of violence is not only
something between the reactionary state and the people or the revolutionary movement but also within that state and
the contending factions of the ruling classes.