The workers who spend all their time and energy in the abstract discussion of the Nazi’s “democratic rights”—to say nothing of working themselves into a lather in defense of these “rights”—will end their discussion under a Fascist club in a concentration camp. The workers who delude themselves and waste their time begging the capitalist democrats in office to “act” against the Fascists, will end up in the same place, just as the workers of Italy, Germany, and Austria did.

The workers have more vital concerns. They are and should be interested in defending and expanding their democratic rights. But not in any abstract sense. These rights are the concrete rights of free speech, assembly, press, the right to organize, strike, and picket, without which an independent working class simply cannot exist.

A decaying capitalism—of which Fascism is only a natural product—seeks constantly to restrict and destroy these rights, which are not truly genuine even in “normal” times. These rights can only be defended from the assaults of capitalism and its ugly offspring Fascism, in the same way in which they were acquired: by the tireless, aggressive, unbending, independent struggle of the working class.

The wailing and weeping about the Nazi’s “rights” can safely be left to the prissy liberals and the phony democrats.

The self-preservation of the working class demands that it cut through all abstract chatter and smash the Fascist gangs by decisive and relentless action.

Farrell Dobbs