This statement was distributed to a protest of tens of thousands of young people against the founding of the youth organization of the AfD in Giessen on November 29.

Tens of thousands are demonstrating in Giessen against the founding of the fascist youth organisation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The mass protests are significant, because the AfD is being ever more openly integrated into the political establishment. Substantial parts of its programme, such as the persecution of refugees and the massive rearmament drive, are being implemented by all the parliamentary parties.

However, the protest is being led politically by the very forces that are themselves moving ever further to the right and paving the way for the fascist AfD—the trade unions, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, the Left Party and even the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP). A serious struggle against the fascist danger requires a clear understanding of the causes of this shift to the right: escalating militarism and the deep crisis of capitalism. It requires a socialist perspective that abolishes the foundation of war and fascism: the capitalist system.

In the United States, Donald Trump has already formed a government of the financial oligarchy that suppresses all resistance to the mass deportation of immigrant workers, to the genocide in Gaza and to its war plans, with the help of fascist gangs and the military.

In Germany, too, the fascists are increasingly being integrated into parliamentary work. The Association of Family-Owned Businesses recently announced that it will in future cooperate with the AfD. In the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), faction leader Jens Spahn and Bundestag (parliament) President Julia Klöckner have long been working towards receiving support from the AfD, or even bringing it directly into government.

For this reason, the mobilisation for today’s demonstration has also been massively attacked. In Berlin, students were prohibited from holding anti-fascist assemblies in order to mobilise for Giessen. The CDU-SPD state government in Hesse sent thousands of police officers into the city to brutally suppress the protests and enable the founding of the fascist youth organisation.

These are not isolated misjudgements. The support and integration of the AfD are fully in line with the policy of the federal government. It makes refugees and migrants scapegoats, deports people on a mass scale, cuts social spending at federal, state and municipal levels and is rearming on a scale not seen since Hitler.

It is making Germany’s infrastructure “fit for war,” reintroducing conscription and converting the economy to armaments production so that Berlin can be in a position to wage war against Russia within three years. These insane plans and the militarisation of society as a whole cannot be enforced through democratic methods. This is why opponents of war and genocide are already being suppressed—and why the fascists of the AfD are being courted. At the international level, the German government has long been working closely with the fascist Giorgia Meloni in Italy and bowing before Trump.

The mass layoffs in industry, the severe social cuts and the aggressive war policy arise from the deep crisis of capitalism, which is being further intensified by the technological revolution of artificial intelligence. Just as Hitler was brought to power in 1933 by the elites of business, politics and the military in order to save capitalism and prepare world war, the ruling class today is once again relying on authoritarian and fascist forces to defend its utterly bankrupt social order.

This is why a movement against fascism must also turn against its root cause: capitalism. Only if the major banks and corporations are expropriated and placed under democratic control can the world economy be planned rationally and serve human needs. Otherwise, the ultra-wealthy financial oligarchy will return to barbarism to defend its absurd privileges.

There is a strong objective basis for this socialist perspective: the international working class, that is, all those who create all wealth and bear the full burden of war and crisis. Across Europe and internationally, the working class is entering into struggle. In Italy, millions of workers are striking against the fascist Meloni government, in Belgium and France millions are protesting against austerity diktats and war policy, and in the United States the “No Kings” protests were the largest coordinated demonstrations in the country’s history. Today’s demonstration against the AfD is part of this international mobilisation.

But the decisive question is that of perspective. If the protests remain within the capitalist framework and are dominated by pro-capitalist parties and trade unions, they will achieve nothing.

In the United States, the Democratic Party is working closely with Trump. The newly elected “left-wing” mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, reconciled himself with Trump even before taking office. This shows that the entire ruling class is committed to war and dictatorship.

Here too, the Greens and the Left Party support the extreme right-wing policy of the federal government on all essential points. The Left Party approved the one-trillion-euro war credits in the Federal Council, enabled Friedrich Merz to be elected chancellor swiftly and lends the government its votes whenever they are required. At the state and municipal level, it implements cuts and deportations. For the Greens, the government’s war policy does not go far enough; they would prefer to wage war against nuclear-armed Russia sooner rather than later.

The formerly “left” parties are marching straight to the right because they defend the bankrupt capitalist system, which is descending ever deeper into barbarism. The same applies to the trade union bureaucrats. They have degenerated into co-managers who enforce the dictates of corporate executives against the workforce. They support the nationalist agenda of trade war and military conflict.

Workers can halt the shift to the right and prevent war and fascism only if they break with these pro-capitalist organisations and organise themselves in independent rank-and-file action committees that link the struggle against social attacks with the struggle against war and defend democratic rights. These action committees must unite across all national borders and join the International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.

Only if the masses intervene independently in political life on this basis can the power of the banks and corporations be broken and war and fascism prevented. We therefore call on all participants in the demonstration to study the programme of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) and to take an active part in building it as a new socialist mass party.