Superficially, all who oppose the regime of Hitler, Mussolini, and company, are anti-fascists. Actually, each has his own concept of what anti-fascism is.
Lord Halifax, foreign minister in the Chamberlain Cabinet, deeply religious hater of the Spanish Revolutionaries, is now an anti-fascist. Churchill, one time admirer of Mussolini, hater of labor, chief strike-breaker (1926 General Strike), defender of imperialism, is now an anti-fascist. The Polish government in exile represents the Poland of slavish repression. This Poland, which grabbed a piece of Czechoslovakia unwanted by Hitler, is now antifascist. Poor helpless Greece, where Premier Metaxas, and his puppet King George instituted a dictatorship and the suppression of the masses almost as heartless and ruthless as Hitler's, is now antifascist. The "Free French" who want to restore the same system which spawned fascism are also antifascist. So is the Mazzini "Free Italy" movement. Totalitarian Russia, pioneer of fascism, where "Liberty is a bourgoise virtue" (Lenin) and the state drains the blood of the people, is also anti-fascist. So are the other State-Socialists who aim to establish the dictatorship of the bureaucracy, the rule of the mediocre. Herbert Hoover, Wall Street, Standard Oil, who want to safeguard "Free Enterprise" (the right of the capitalist to work his slaves to death without interference) are also anti-fascists.
When two thieves quarrel over booty the gangster who gets the lesser share does not thereby become an honest man. Yet, these are the people who will face each other at the peace table. The kind of peace they will make is bound to reflect their class position. Any peace made by these elements must inevitably lead to future wars since all the institutions and the abuses germinated at such a peace table, will, with slight modification, be left intact. All the roots of fascism will be fertilized and allowed to grow.
These are the anti-fascists who now control the conduct of the war. Under cover of military necessity they are entrenching themselves in such a way as to assure their continuance in power after the war is over. The bulk of the anti-fascist movement is composed of workers, peasants, and oppressed minorities. It includes all sorts of people with all sorts of views and prejudices: from devout Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Mohammedan, Budhists, to fanatical nationalists, and ardent revolutionaries. The oppressed "minorities" and the nationalists, are anti-fascists merely because they wish to be left in peace. They want to keep right on being clannish. They demand the right to sit in their Ivory Towers. The fact that churchism and nationalism are in themselves the breeding grounds of fascism does not concern them. As someone once said, "People do not wish to be free, they wish to be safe." There are, however, other anti-fascists who understand that the defeat of fascism must be accomplished radically by tearing out the root causes, the religion of statism, its corollary, nationalism, and the system of exploitation in all its manifold forms. To accomplish this, the means of life must be in the hands of the people who do the world's work. Society must be rebuilt on the solid foundations of human solidarity and freedom.
Viewed from this angle, the war against fascism cannot be successful if it is waged only to restore capitalist democracy to create a Super-State-controlled society. True anti-fascists demand a radical change. Archaic and monstrous social institutions can be swept away only by the swift current of social-revolution. The fight against fascism must, by its very nature, constitute a revolutionary act. Not just "Anti-Fascism," but Whose and Which is the question.