This is a guest post by Al-Qanaas Al-Masri
I was reading IPPR’s new report ‘Building bridges, not walls’ last night, when I suddenly felt unaccountably drowsy and fell asleep. When I awoke I found the following notes scrawled feverishly on the back of the report, in a hand-writing inexplicably like my own. I have transcribed these exactly as I found them.
I was in the British Library doing recently some research on European politics in the late 1920s when I stumbled across material produced by a then-prominent British left-wing think-tank, the Research and Public Policy Institute, best known by its initials RPPI.
This prominent think-tank, although in its own words “driven by a belief in the importance of fairness, democracy and sustainability”, arguedthat contemporary claims that fascist ideologies could lead to massive state-sponsored violence were “unproven” and said instead that “engagement with law-abiding, non-violent fascists can play a valuable role” in overcoming “mutual distrust” abroad and promoting “community cohesion” in the UK.
The think-tank dismissed right-wing opponents of European fascism as pro-US warmongers while it also denigrated Jews and Leftists who had fled early fascist states such as Mussolini’s Italy as “the thought police” for warning of the dangers potentially posed by increasing popular fascist opposition groups in Germany and elsewhere.
Instead the think-tank believed that because fascist parties in Europe often “were [the] strongest and most popular opposition to existing authoritarian regimes” they should be “engaged with”, arguing that “an approach that seeks to ignore these political currents is no longer morally or strategically defensible”.
Thus instead of seeking to support Europe’s, admittedly weak, liberal and democratic parties, RPPI instead advocated supporting the very anti-democratic fascist organizations that were systematically oppressing and persecuting them.
Extraordinarily, they did this despite ample evidence from Italy that fascist governments tended to become more and not less radical once in power and despite continual reports from European refugees and dissidents that fascist opposition groups in Germany, Romania and elsewhere engaging in continual, and often lethal, violence towards their opponents in an attempt to intimidate them into silence.
Amazingly, as it now appears to us, RPPI were consequently willing to back major European fascist parties even though there was clear evidence that they aimed to abolish democracy once they took power, that they were overtly anti-Semitic (they blamed “the Jews” for the wretched state of their societies) and that they openly advocated the murder of homosexuals, socialists, trade-unionists, feminists and others for weakening the “unity” and “morals” of their respective nations.
Although in hindsight it may seem almost laughable, RPPI was proud of its support for these fascist groups, even boasting of how it had given them public platforms to expound their views while avoiding “interrogating” them on their commitment to basic human rights. For example, one RPPI article from September 1929 recounted that:
“To this end [of “moving the debate forward”], in November 1928, RPPI held an international symposium on the theme of fascism in Western Europe. Alongside members of the western political establishment, academia and civil society, it also involved current or former representatives of a number of fascist parties, including the German Nazi party, the Italian National Fascist Party, British Union of Fascists and the Romanian Iron Guard. The aim of the conference was not to put fascists on the back foot by interrogating their commitment to western democratic ideals, but rather to provide a neutral space for debate about political reform, human rights, the relationship between religion and state and regional political, economic and security dynamics. Although few conclusions were reached, the process of dialogue was valuable in and of itself.”
Even more extraordinary, RPPI audaciously used the same report to appeal for government grants, apparently seeking to make money out of the rise of fascist parties and its support for them, suggesting that:
“Non-governmental think tanks or research organizations like PRRI are well-placed to play a bridging role here by enabling representatives of western governments and fascist movements to meet in a high-level but less formal setting. If managed skilfully, such forums could give fascist politicians and activists the opportunity to voice their own concerns about western policy in the European region, while also allowing western policymakers to challenge them on issues where their position remains overly vague or inconsistent.”
Looking through such documents, one is shocked by simultaneously their author’s naivety and by their stubborn, almost sinister, determination not to let facts get in the way of their ideology.
What, one wonders, would it have taken for groups like RPPI, along with their long-forgotten analysts like Randy Lull, to come to their sense and recognise fascism for what it really was?
Did they only wake up the dangers of fascism once the fascists came directly for them and their families? Or were they even in denial right until the end, cowering in air-raid shutters, muttering ‘this only makes the case for engagement stronger’, as the bombs of the Luftwaffe rumbled ever closer?
