Louis I believe you make the mistake of over identifying every thing that happened in the world communist movement as directly being an expression of Stalinism. Stalin was acting on contradictory forces, despite his claims to being all powerful he was more often then not a reactor to situations well beyond his control.
The non-aggression pact flew in the face of the Popular Front and caused all soughts of problems precisely because the USSR dressed it up in frontist expressions, in reality it was a direct result of the macinations of great powers. Stalin found the "allies" completely passive in the face of German agression, he feared that the West was simply serving up the USSR to the Nazis and there was more than a grain of truth to this. Ironically it was the alliance with the USSR which brought the West into confrontation with Germany - however this had little to do with Stalin's motives as his unpreparedness for the Nazi attack in 1941 fully demonstrated (as a matter of state power Stalin was completely faithfull to the pact and desperate that the German's leave him alone - once again he demonstrated his niaviety and stupidity which underlaid his cunning ruthlessness). Again what does this have to do with the Popular Front? It is all perfectly understandable via international state alliances. As for Charles' statement that the Popular Front was (partly) responsible for the defeat of fascism, this is a reasonable reading of the period. Without the Front there was a real chance of the UK coming to permanent accord with Hitler - Churchill all too aware (he was an early and staunch admire of Nazism) that such a "peace" would bring about social revolution his position during the war can only be understand as his fear of the social results of making peace. Likewise it is difficult to imagine the resistence in europe without the communists and the links established prior to occupation by the Popular Front. hen again we could also mention the second front campaign, there were clear indications tht the western allies were only too willing to wait until Russia had ground down German power and in the process ground itself into the ground. There was tremendous pressure to open up the second front precisely so this would not come about. Of course it is difficult to rerun history and take out a vital element like the Popular Front, however, it is obvious the Front played a major role in shaping social and political attitudes, that it took decades to erode the power of the Popular Front and social demands which stemed from it and that the war may well have turned out very differently without it. Greg --- Message Received --- From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 14:37:43 -0400 Subject: [PEN-L:25364] Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists >CB: On this issue, what about the fact that fascism _was_ defeated by the Popular Front. Do you mean the Allies? I wouldn't exactly call the military alliance between Stalin and Churchill and Roosevelt a Popular Front. It was a military alliance between sovereign nations. For that matter, I saw it as eminently principled for Stalin to have signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler (despite the costly illusions that arose out of this.) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org ______________________________ Greg Schofield Perth Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Modular And Integrated Design - programing power for all Lestec's MAID and LTMailer http://www.lestec.com.au also available at Amazon.com ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________
