On July 2nd, the fascist group Patriot Front (PF) marched through sections of Boston, Massachusetts and along the Freedom Trail. Around 100 uniformed fascists wore masks to hide their faces and carried shields and American flags on large poles to use as weapons. During the march they attacked and hospitalized a black man. This was a violent hate crime.
The march and attack come only weeks after members of the PF were arrested in Idaho after showing up to a Pride event in riot gear intending to disrupt the event and attack the crowd. Groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center report that since their inception in 2017, the Patriot Front has been responsible for the majority of white nationalist, white supremacist, far-right violence and propaganda in the U.S.
The Patriot Front (PF) is a splinter group from another fascist organization, Vanguard America, which was responsible for killing one and wounding several other anti-fascist protestors. A Vanguard member drove their car into a crowd at a counter-protest following the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017. The far-right attacks workers, women, people of color, the left, and all other groups they see as standing in the way of their attempt to gain a public presence and political power through intimidation, violent attacks, and murder, like in Charlottesville.
This latest attempt by fascists to organize publicly and intimidate people in Boston must be immediately opposed by mass protest. A much smaller fascist public display in Boston on August 19, 2017, was answered by a 40,000-strong anti-fascist march that chased the fascists out of Boston Common. We must do that again. We must get more people out in a show of force against fascism.
With our rights under attack by the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, and a host of other anti-worker Supreme Court rulings, the far-right is emboldened to further lash out. The far-right had already been gaining momentum from the use of right populism by the Trump regime, as shown by the January 6th right-wing political riot in Washington D.C.
Fascist groups like the Patriot Front attempt to use far-right and right-wing populism and racism, including white nationalist and white supremacist propaganda, to try and influence and divide working people and to draw individuals into their far-right groups and ideology. Their attempts to divide and capture working people and other individuals into fascism often use the conditions of capitalist economic crisis and inequality.
As socialists, we argue that the capitalist class is the real group responsible for the poverty and precarity people suffer under capitalism. The two capitalist political parties — the Republican and Democratic parties — have often used racism, sexism, and other forms of special oppression to divide the working class in order to maintain their control over society. In previous times of economic and social crisis, capitalists have used far-right ideology and fascist groups to repress, imprison, and murder people in order to crush organized left or progressive mass movements, including unions, civil rights groups, and workers’ parties.
The far-right often tries using right-wing populism to hide the corporate greed and the big business politics of capitalism – the real source of falling living standards, a lack of social benefits, and an insecure future for working people. Far-right and fascist groups are fronting for the big corporations and far-right politicians, but they often try to hide this. Neither corporate party is able to stop the current crises of capitalism because these parties both fundamentally serve the same capitalist class which has put us into this situation. We need to build a broad anti-fascist movement to immediately expose, oppose, and stop the far-right, including its racism and hate.
As the economic crisis worsens, the far-right will try to take advantage and divert people with reactionary ideas. Neither the Republican nor Democratic parties are able to address the underlying economic conditions far-right groups use to gain influence and numbers. It’s up to working-class people to organize, mobilize, and lead the fight against fascism! For more on a socialist and working-class response to fighting the far right, read our article.
The threat of the far-right must be dealt with now, before these groups can grow larger and before the extent of their terror against people worsens. The Independent Socialist Group (ISG) calls for:
- Mass protests against the far-right in Boston and all other cities and towns where these groups try to organize. Let’s mobilize 50,000 counter-protestors out on the Boston Common!
- Organize solidarity among all working people! For a fighting movement of unions, anti-racist groups, progressive organizations, and working people to stop the far-right by denying them public space in which to organize. No public space for fascists!
- For democratic community-based committees to help organize workers’ self-defense. No faith in the capitalist state to stop far-right violence, especially given the number of ties between some police and far-right groups and ideas.
- For a mass, multi-racial left political party for working people — a workers party. A workers party, independent of the corporations, can mobilize the working class to fight and defeat the far-right as part of organizing for better living conditions including truly affordable housing, free healthcare for all, free higher education, a living wage, and better living standards for all working people.
- Fight the far-right at the source! Build a mass workers movement capable of replacing the violent and exploitative capitalist system with democratic control of the economy by the majority — socialism.
Independent Socialist Group 