The Class Character of Fascism (George Dimitrov)

By Archives Révolutionnaires – Oct 22, 2025

We present an excerpt from Dimitrov’s report which describes the class character of fascism. This text [from 1935] can help us decode contemporary authoritarian and fascist phenomena and better organize our response. As Dimitrov states: “Anyone who does not fight, during these preparatory stages, against the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growing fascism, is not in a position to hinder the victory of fascism but, on the contrary, facilitates it”:

Fascism in power is, as the 13th Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International rightly characterized it, the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, imperialist elements of finance capital .

The most reactionary variety of fascism is fascism of the German type, which shamelessly calls itself National Socialism, without having anything in common with German socialism. German fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is bestial chauvinism. It is a governmental system of political banditry, a system of provocation and torture of the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, and the intellectuals. It is medieval barbarism and savagery. It is unbridled aggression against other peoples and other countries.

German fascism appears as the shock troop of the international counter-revolution, as the main fomenter of imperialist war, as the instigator of the crusade against the Soviet Union, the great homeland of the workers of the whole world.

Fascism is not a form of state power that supposedly “places itself above the two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie,” as Otto Bauer, for example, claimed. It is not “the petty bourgeoisie in revolt that has seized the state machine,” as the English socialist Brailsford declared. No. Fascism is not a power above classes, nor the power of the petty bourgeoisie or the declassed elements of the proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist repression against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intellectuals. Fascism, in foreign policy, is chauvinism in its crudest form, cultivating a bestial hatred against other peoples.

It is necessary to emphasize with particular vigor this true character of fascism because the mask of social demagogy has allowed fascism to draw along with it, in a series of countries, the masses of the petty bourgeoisie disoriented by the crisis, and even certain sections of the most backward layers of the proletariat, who would never have followed fascism if they had understood its real class character, its true nature.

The development of fascism and the fascist dictatorship itself assume various forms in different countries, depending on the historical, social, and economic conditions, on the national peculiarities and the international situation of the given country. In some countries, mainly where fascism does not have a broad base among the masses and where the struggle of the various groupings within the camp of the fascist bourgeoisie itself is quite strong, fascism does not immediately resolve to liquidate parliament and leaves a certain legality to the other bourgeois parties, as well as to the Social Democracy. In other countries, where the ruling bourgeoisie fears the imminent outbreak of revolution, fascism establishes its unlimited political monopoly either immediately or by increasingly intensifying terror and repression against all competing parties and groupings. This fact does not exclude, on the part of fascism, at the moment of a particular aggravation of its situation, attempts to broaden its base and, without changing its class essence, to combine open terrorist dictatorship with a gross falsification of parliamentarism.

The coming to power of fascism is not the ordinary substitution of one bourgeois government for another but the replacement of one state form of the class rule of the bourgeoisie–bourgeois democracy—by another form of this rule, the declared terrorist dictatorship. To ignore this distinction would be a grave error which would prevent the revolutionary proletariat from mobilizing the most tense working classes of the city and the countryside for the struggle against the threat of the seizure of power by the fascists and from utilizing the contradictions existing within the camp of the bourgeoisie itself. But it is no less serious and no less dangerous to underestimate the importance for the establishment of the fascist dictatorship of the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie, which are now becoming more serious in the bourgeois–democratic countries,and which crush the democratic freedoms of the workers, falsify and curtail the rights of Parliament, and intensify the repression of the revolutionary movement.

Comrades, one cannot form the simplistic and unified idea of ​​the coming to power of fascism that some committee of finance capital would decide to establish the fascist dictatorship on a certain date. In reality, fascism usually comes to power in a reciprocal struggle, sometimes a bitter one, with the old bourgeois parties or a certain section of them, in a struggle that is waged even within the fascist camp and that sometimes leads to armed clashes, as we have seen in Germany, Austria, and other countries. All this, however, without weakening the importance of the fact that before the establishment of the fascist dictatorship, bourgeois governments usually pass through a series of preparatory stages and take a series of reactionary measures contributing to the direct advent of fascism. Anyone who does not fight, during these preparatory stages, against the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growing fascism, is not in a position to hinder the victory of fascism but, on the contrary, facilitates it.

The leaders of the Social Democracy blurred and concealed from the masses the true class character of fascism; they did not call for a struggle against the increasingly strong reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie. They bear the great historical responsibility for the fact that at the decisive moment of the fascist offensive, a considerable section of the working masses in Germany and a number of other fascist countries did not recognize fascism as the bloodthirsty financial predator, their worst enemy, and for the fact that these masses were not prepared to fight back.

What, then, is the source of fascism’s influence on the masses? Fascism succeeds in attracting the masses because it appeals, demagogically, to their most sensitive needs and aspirations. Fascism not only stirs up the deeply rooted prejudices of the masses; it also plays on the best sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice, and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions. Why do the German fascists, these lackeys of the big bourgeoisie and mortal enemies of socialism, pass themselves off to the masses as “socialists” and represent their coming to power as a “revolution”? Because they aim to exploit the faith in revolution, the impulse toward socialism, which lives in the hearts of the great working masses of Germany.

Fascism acts in the interests of the ultra-imperialists, but it presents itself to the masses under the mask of the defender of the injured nation and appeals to wounded national sentiment, like, for example, German fascism, which drew the masses behind it with the slogan “Against Versailles!”

Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses, but it approaches them with a skillful anti-capitalist demagogy, exploiting the workers’ deep hatred for the rapacious bourgeoisie, the banks, the trusts, and the financial magnates, and formulating the most tempting slogans at the given moment for the politically unsophisticated masses. In Germany: “the general interest takes precedence over private interest.” In Italy: “our state is not a capitalist state, but a corporative one.” In Japan: “for a Japan without exploitation.” In the United States: “For the sharing of wealth”, etc.

Fascism delivers the people to the mercy of the most corrupt venal elements but presents itself to them claiming an “honest and incorruptible power.” By speculating on the deep disappointment of the masses with bourgeois–democratic governments, fascism hypocritically indignantly protests against corruption (for example, the Barmat and Sklarek cases in Germany, the Staviski case in France, and a series of others).

Fascism, in the interests of the most reactionary circles of the bourgeoisie, captures the disappointed masses who abandon the old bourgeois parties. But it imposes itself on these masses by the violence of its attacks on bourgeois governments, by its intransigent attitude towards the old parties of the bourgeoisie.

Surpassing in cynicism and hypocrisy all other varieties of bourgeois reaction, fascism adapts its demagogy to the national peculiarities of each country and even to the peculiarities of the different social strata within a single country. And the masses of the petty bourgeoisie, and even a section of the workers, driven to despair by poverty, unemployment, and the precariousness of their existence, become victims of the social and chauvinistic demagogy of fascism.

Five of Lenin’s Insights That Are More Pertinent Than Ever

Fascism comes to power as the shock party against the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, against the fermenting popular masses, but it presents its advent to power as a “revolutionary” movement against the bourgeoisie in the name of “the whole nation” and for the “salvation” of the nation. Let us recall Mussolini’s “march” on Rome, Pilsudski’s “march” on Warsaw, Hitler’s National Socialist “revolution” in Germany, etc.

But whatever mask fascism wears, whatever form it takes, whatever path it takes to power: Fascism is the most ferocious offensive of capital against the working masses. Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and war of conquest. Fascism is frenzied reaction and counterrevolution.

• Fascism is the worst enemy of the working class and all workers!
• Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war;
• Fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution;
• Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people.

Source: Dimitrov, Georges. Selected Works (Volume 2) , Sofia-Presse, 1972, pages 6-11.

George Dimitrov (1882-1949) was one of the main leaders of the communist movement during the interwar period. He led the communist uprising in Bulgaria in 1923 before going into exile in the USSR. From 1934 to 1943, he was general secretary of the Communist International. In this capacity, he offered an in-depth analysis of fascism at the Seventh Congress of the International (August 1935). Dimitrov shows that fascism continues the authoritarian tendency of capitalism and represents an “extreme form” of big business. He emphasizes that fascism resonates with certain groups because it mobilizes a discourse of change, in contrast to the liberal status quo. Finally, Dimitrov argues that revolutionary organizations must fight fascism with force.

(Archives Révolutionnaires)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune