By Indybag
Fascists are in Government in Germany. Allow that to sink in.
Fascists are rallying in the UK- their conferences are attracting big business.
Fascists are sporadically rampaging through our city streets.
The left need to help fight back. Socialism is LESS likely- and will be a very dangerous outlook to have – in a fascist society.
Calling for the working class to rise up, just doesn’t cut it. It sounds as unlikely as organised left groups at public meetings calling for a general strike. At this juncture, the left are not strong enough on their own- but we do have strengths that can help in a wider anti-fascist movement- a movement we can help get off the ground.
The paradox of the revolutionary left is its immense capacity to inspire working-class people while systematically burning out its most dedicated activists. The internal reality of our organisations has too often been one of grinding attrition. The relentless drive to recruit in our schemes, colleges, universities and town and city streets, the constant pressure for funds, and the endless weekend paper sales in the freezing rain turn passionate political actors into exhausted foot soldiers. Worse still are the odd democratic structures. Democratic centralism, in practice, frequently feels heavily central and barely democratic. Internal dissent is stifled. Endless factional battles erupt over microscopic theoretical differences, and a rigid orthodoxy estranges the very people trying to build an independent, fairer Scotland. It is no secret why so many brilliant, motivated people have walked away. When the internal mechanics of a party demand absolute subservience to a “big man” vanguard at the expense of human empathy, it ceases to be a movement and becomes a treadmill. This burnout has cost us some of our brightest – most enthusiastic- minds. And the Vanguardism, when injected into movements and campaigns, without fail, rots solidarity from the inside.
Setting Our Egos Aside
We no longer have the luxury of fighting these internal wars. The far-right is no longer a fringe abstraction. They are organising on our streets, targeting vulnerable communities, and pushing their poison deep into our democratic institutions. Look at Reform UK. They are nothing but a recycled ultra-Tory grift, a MAGA-style cult built on culture wars rather than material class solidarity. Fascism feeds on a divided opposition. To confront the rising tide of racist, ethno-nationalist violence, the entrenched left must urgently set aside its egos. The strongman vanguardism of the past cannot hold the line today. We cannot demand that someone shares an exact analysis of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution before we stand with them against a fascist mob. We haven’t got the time to wait for the masses to read another print run of a socialist street paper and rise up… we’ll be waiting as our doors are driven in by the jackboot of the New Brit Order. We must unite with anti-fascists who hold fundamentally different visions of the future, with those we have bitterly split from in the past, and with those whose politics are reformist rather than revolutionary. The ideological purity tests are shitty egotistical distractions and must end.
A Genuinely Broad Front
None of this critique diminishes the unique abilities of the organised left. When the call goes out, nobody has the institutional memory, the logistical grit, or the sheer mobilising power of these groups. They know how to pull people together when it counts. And here is the promise. Even those of us who are burned out, exhausted, and disillusioned, even those of us who left our respective left-wing organisations smashing windows as we went, will come back to the barricades. We will always stand up to fascism. But the old tricks will not work. The old vanguard spinning up yet another thinly veiled front organisation will not cut it. Separate socialist sects calling competing mass actions on the same day to wave flags and sell papers/push people into “public” meetings is an insult to the urgency of the moment. All of this alienates people. Valuable, politically motivated individuals will stay away from organisations still obsessing over yesterday’s leftist political battles.
Building the Anti-Fascist Guardrails
Building a functional coalition across deep political divides requires shifting our focus from what we want the future to look like, to what we must stop today. It demands strict structural guardrails to prevent sectarian takeovers while maximising our collective power on the streets to protect our schemes.
Establish a Single-Issue Mandate
The coalition must exist solely to oppose the far-right grifters and new fascists. Bracket all the endless debates on foreign policy, electoral strategies, or the ultimate nature of the state. If a discussion or proposed action does not directly relate to dismantling fascist organising or protecting vulnerable communities from racist attacks, it belongs in a different room. The baseline agreement is simple. Fascists do not get to hold our streets.
Structure for Equal Ownership
Vanguard parties must accept that they are partners, not the undisputed “big man” leaders. We must ensure decision-making bodies are heavily weighted toward local community groups, trade union reps, and unaligned activists rather than just political parties. If one socialist faction tries to dominate the steering committee, those such as the liberals and anarchists will rightly walk. We need to keep the power structure flat, horizontal, and fiercely transparent.
A Division of Labour
Ideological differences naturally dictate a diversity of tactics. We must use this as a strength rather than a friction point.
Moderate contingents are highly effective at community outreach, fundraising, legal observation, and providing safe logistical hubs.
Radical and direct action contingents excel at physical blockades, intelligence gathering, and frontline street defence.
We must stop demanding everyone participate in the exact same way. Coordinate these lanes so they support, rather than sabotage, one another… look back to when this horizontal power structure worked incredibly well during the G8 in Scotland in 2005- Clown Armies, graffiti artists, ad-hoc media centres, socialist marches, knit-ins, pensioner demos at Faslane and other acts of solidarity and disruption unpoliced by populist left leadership stopped world leaders literally in their tracks.
Pool Practical Resources
Trust is built through mutual aid and material class solidarity, not ideological debates. We must create shared legal defence funds, consolidate street medic teams, and distribute unified bust cards for protests. When an unaligned youth or a moderate organiser sees seasoned radicals putting themselves on the line to protect the whole crowd, the unwanted and destructive walls break down.
Enforce Meeting Discipline
Use independent, neutral facilitators for organising meetings. Seasoned politicos are notorious for filibustering, dominating the room, and exhausting newcomers with procedural manoeuvres. Left groups peppering the room with activists with worked out scripts and calls for people to go to their next meeting or jump aboard a bus to demonstrate in London MUST be policed. Strict time limits and consensus-based agendas prevent meetings from degrading into the very ideological slugfests that drove people away in the first place. I’ve already seen this in disparate groups I’ve attended across Glasgow in the past couple of years- all of these groups claiming some sort of authority in calling for anti-fascist action, but claiming the high ground from groups they have historically opposed. And, of course, new groups that have at their core different organising groups that come from different “Trotskyist” splits and fractures.
Winning with Material Solidarity
We need a truly non-sectarian movement rooted in community power and horizontalism. A united front means stepping out of our comfort zones and actively welcoming trade unionists, unaligned youth, cross-party actors, and left-liberals. It means building a broad coalition based not on ideological perfection, but on the shared, urgent necessity of keeping our streets safe and our communities properly informed. If we want a blueprint for this, we can look to the Gorton and Denton strategy. The 2026 Green victory by Hannah Spencer, alongside the approach championed by Zack Polanski, proves that we win by delivering hope and concrete anti-poverty legislation. We do not win by arguing with reactionary trolls on Trillionaire Musk’s X. We win by organising in the schemes, treating stagnant “Project Fear” Labour/Tory politics with the disdain it deserves, and delivering material solidarity over culture war distractions. We have the history, we have the clever people with incredible organising skills, and we have the power, and we can learn to share it.
