"Fascism is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man's character. It is the basic emotional civilization and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life."Responsibility for the elimination of fascism thus results with the masses of average people who might otherwise support and champion it.

    Spengler's writings had a great effect on the racial thinking of Adolf Hitler.

    The Brown Plague, translated here into English for the first time, is Guérin’s eyewitness account of the fall of the Weimar Republic and the first months of the Third Reich. Originally written for the popular French left press and then revised by the author into book form, The Brown Plague delivers a passionate warning to French workers about the terror and horror of fascism. Guérin chronicles the collapse of the German workers’ movement and reports on the beginnings of clandestine resistance to the Nazis. He also describes the Socialist and Communist leaderships’ inability to recognize the danger that led to their demise. Through vivid dialogs, interviews, and revealing descriptions of everyday life among the German people, he offers insight into the tragedy that was beginning to unfold. Guérin’s travels took him across the countryside and into the cities of Germany. He describes with extraordinary clarity, for example, his encounters with large groups of unemployed workers in Berlin and the spectacle of Goering presiding over the Reichstag. Staying in youth hostels, Guérin met individuals representing a range of various groups and movements, including the Wandervögel, leftist brigades, Hitler Youth, and the strange, semicriminal sexual underground of the Wild-frei. Devoting particular attention to the cultural politics of fascism and the lure of Nazism for Germany’s disaffected youth, he describes the seductive rituals by which the Nazis were able to win over much of the population. As Robert Schwartzwald makes clear in his introduction, Guérin’s interest in Germany at this time was driven, in part, by a homoerotic component that could not be stated explicitly in his published material. This excellent companion essay also places The Brown Plague within a broad historical and literary context while drawing connections between fascism, aesthetics, and sexuality. Informed by an epic view of class struggle and an admiration for German culture, The Brown Plague, a notable primary source in the literature of modern Europe, provides a unique view onto the rise of Nazism.

    The arguments claim that urban life has a deleterious effect on nature, community, family, and the spirit and offer a challenge to "flee to the fields," seeking a life not dominated by technology and artificial schedules but by the forces of God and nature. Newly edited and annotated, this edition stands as an important work of English social criticism.

    LTD. LONDON 36 Essex Street W. C. 2 First published in any language in 1936 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOREWORD STRIFE has raged about Karl Marx for decades, and never has it been so embittered as at the present day. . He has impressed his image on the time as no other man has done To some he is afiend, the arch-enemy of human civilisation, and the prince of chaos, while to others he is a far-seeing and beloved leader, guiding the human race towards a brighter future. In Russia his teachings are the official doctrines of the state, while Fascist countries wish them exterminated. In the areas under the sway of the Chinese Soviets Marxs portrait appears upon the bank-notes, while in Germany they have burned his books. Practically all the parties of the Socialist Workers International, and the Communist parties in all countries, acknowledge Marxism, the eradication of which is the sole purpose of innumerable political leagues, associations and coalitions. The French Proudhonists of the sixties, the followers of Lassalle in Germany of the seventies, the Fabians in England before the War produced their own brand of Socialism which they opposed to that of Marx. The anti-Marxism of to-day has nothing in common with those movements. He who opposes Marxism to-day does not do so because, for instance, he denies the validity of Marxs theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Similarly there are millions to-day who acknowledge Marx as their leader, but not because he solved the riddle of capitalist society. Perhaps one Socialist Jn a th9u and ha. s ever read any of JMarx s ecpnpinic vyrritingsrand of a thousand anti-Marxists notjrvtffl one. The strife no longer rages round the truth or Talsehood of the doctrine of historical materialism or the validity of the labour theory of valfce or the theory of marginal utility. These things are discussed and also not discussed. The arena in which Marx is fought about to-day is in the factories, in the parliaments and at the barricades. In both camps, the bourgeois and the Socialist, Marx is first of all, if not exclusively, the vi KARL MARX MAN AND FIGHTER the leader of the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow Capitalism. This book is intended to describe the life of Marx the fighter. We make no attempt to disguise the difficulties of such an undertaking. Marxism to use the word in its proper sense, embracing the whole of Marxs work is a whole. To divide theory from practice was completely alien to Marxs nature. How then, can his life bejmderstood cxcegt as a unity j f thought and action The man of science was not even half the man Engels said in his speech at the grave-side of his dead friend. For Marx science was an historically moving, revolutionary force. Marx was above all a revolutionary. To co-operate in one way or another in the work of bringing about the downfall of capitalist society and the state institutions which were its creations, to co-operate in the liberation of the modern proletariat, to make it conscious of its situation and its needs, and conscious of the conditions for its own emancipation that was his real life-work. 3 Marx was a Socialist before he reached real and complete understanding of the laws of development underlying bourgeois society. When he wrote the Communist Manifesto at the age of thirty he did not yet appreciate the many different forms which surplus value could assume, but the Communist Mani festo contained the whole doctrine of the class-war and showed the proletariat the historical task that itiiad to fulfil. We have written the biography of Marx as the strategist of the class struggle. The discoveries made by Marx in the course of his explorations of the anatomy of bourgeois society will only be mentioned in so far as they directly concern our subject. But the word directly need not be taken too literally...