Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
Greg Schofield: The Popular Front was one of the great modern innovations in effective political struggle of the working class, at the plain of how communists should work it relates directly to the Communist Manifesto applying the same principles to the specific question of anti-fascist struggle. It certainly was an innovation, although how great it was is another story entirely. Until the rise of Stalin, Marxism fought for class independence. The workers in late 19th century Germany maintained their own press, ran their own candidates and were hostile to any capitalist politician. It was this party that Lenin and the Bolsheviks sought to emulate, which is a fact understood by few self-appointed vanguards today. When giving an example of a vanguard in What is to be Done, Lenin cited Kautsky's party. In the Erfurt Program of 1892, Kautsky wrote: The interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are of so contrary a nature that in the long run they cannot be harmonized. Sooner or later in every capitalist country the participation of the working-class in politics must lead to the formation of an independent party, a labor party. The People's Front was an attempt to harmonze the interests of the workers and the progressive bourgeoisie, who supposedly would be united against those elements of the ruling class that opted for fascism. This analysis was anti-Marxist in its essence. The bourgeoisie has no real committment to democracy. When the Weimar Republic failed to defend capitalist property relations, it threw its support behind Hitler. Today outfits like Goldman-Sachs, my former employer, lavish millions of dollars on Republican and Democrat alike. If these two parties fail to maintain a stable environment for capitalist profits, corporate rulers will investigate outfits to the right starting with Pat Buchanan. The problem in Spain is that the left parties, including the CP and SP but the anarchists as well, did not want to upset the People's Front unity. So they reined in the revolutionary left. When the revolutionary left refused to be reined in, they shot its leaders like Andres Nin. People in Spain were willing to risk their lives for economic as well as political democracy. When they figured out that the People's Front was not willing to smash the old agrarian despotic class relations, they lost their fighting will. In a struggle against fascism, you have to have clearly defined class politics. Watering down social and economic demands leads to the triumph of fascism. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
08:25:34 -0400 Subject: [PEN-L:25347] Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists Greg Schofield: The Popular Front was one of the great modern innovations in effective political struggle of the working class, at the plain of how communists should work it relates directly to the Communist Manifesto applying the same principles to the specific question of anti-fascist struggle. It certainly was an innovation, although how great it was is another story entirely. Until the rise of Stalin, Marxism fought for class independence. The workers in late 19th century Germany maintained their own press, ran their own candidates and were hostile to any capitalist politician. It was this party that Lenin and the Bolsheviks sought to emulate, which is a fact understood by few self-appointed vanguards today. When giving an example of a vanguard in What is to be Done, Lenin cited Kautsky's party. In the Erfurt Program of 1892, Kautsky wrote: The interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are of so contrary a nature that in the long run they cannot be harmonized. Sooner or later in every capitalist country the participation of the working-class in politics must lead to the formation of an independent party, a labor party. The People's Front was an attempt to harmonze the interests of the workers and the progressive bourgeoisie, who supposedly would be united against those elements of the ruling class that opted for fascism. This analysis was anti-Marxist in its essence. The bourgeoisie has no real committment to democracy. When the Weimar Republic failed to defend capitalist property relations, it threw its support behind Hitler. Today outfits like Goldman-Sachs, my former employer, lavish millions of dollars on Republican and Democrat alike. If these two parties fail to maintain a stable environment for capitalist profits, corporate rulers will investigate outfits to the right starting with Pat Buchanan. The problem in Spain is that the left parties, including the CP and SP but the anarchists as well, did not want to upset the People's Front unity. So they reined in the revolutionary left. When the revolutionary left refused to be reined in, they shot its leaders like Andres Nin. People in Spain were willing to risk their lives for economic as well as political democracy. When they figured out that the People's Front was not willing to smash the old agrarian despotic class relations, they lost their fighting will. In a struggle against fascism, you have to have clearly defined class politics. Watering down social and economic demands leads to the triumph of fascism. 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
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
I don't understand your position of these issues, Louis. Are you opposed to cross-class alliances (such as the popular front that Dmitrov advocated)? but aren't a lot of the third-world causes you support organized as cross-class alliances? for example, wasn't Peron's movement a cross-class one? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Greg Schofield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 7:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:25350] Re: Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists Louis this is more guilt by historical association. what happens in history is obviously complex, contradictory and all too often ironic. Simply making a simple reduction of the Popular Front to siding with the bourgeousie, is not about the Front at all but rather a more abstract question misplaced in this context. Confronted with a massive reactionary attack Dimitrov simple gave voice in clear style to creating not some limited and secartian united front (which had been semi-offcial policy since the year dot and is the only form of unity a sectarian the limited left can have) but forming a political unity in the mass of the population itself (ie by-passing the fomal unities which you seem intent on foiting on the Popular Front). Dimitrov did not speak of parties but classes and sections of classes (ie not the political representatives but the classes themselves) the role he pushed forward for communists was to be the rock upon what all else could be built. As I said the Australian experience while having many stalinist warts was explosive and at the rank and file level led to all soughts of people working together and putting ideological differences aside while hammering out a common platform loosely connected with the main anti-fascist thrust of the Front. Hence in this period there was an explosition of proletarian culture, education and mobilization, a magnet which drew in people from every concievable position from conservative Christians to truely liberal members of the bourgeoise, to shop-keepers and the destitute (ie the very sections and classes which Dimitrov identified and which CAME UNDER PROLETARIAN LEADERSHIP - which bureacrats worked hard to convert into CP power). And all of this when Stalin is painted as Uncle Joe all seeing and all knowing demi-god, where party bureacracies fought a long and later successful battle against THE VERY ELEMENTS UNLEASHED BY THE POPULAR FRONT staretgy. Contradiction, irony, complexity - no simple formula of Popular Front = collaboration. We can either explore our history to understand the complex interactions which produced Spain, or we can look for dynamics long hidden by the official position of Trotskism and Stalinism (which soon as possible and where-ever possible broke with the Popular Front). Louis to this you bring banalities, at best misdirected but all displaying no attempt to comprehend the policy as policy or the period of history as history. We cannot pluck out random examples and simply say, there is the proof, nor can we argue by mischaractisation (Popular Front proposed class collaboration). It simply does not work, it is part of our sectarian legacy (or should I say leprosy). And beyond all the complexity that were Spain it was not all that difficult to work out what was going on - but none of this involved the Popular Front as such, though all of it was dressed up in frontism. Stalin and Russian state policy wanted a bargaining chip in their geo-political chess board. To have such a chip they needed direct control over the governement of Republican Spain and they needed a Governement which posed no real class threat to the rest of Europe (this was repeated again in the Greek Civil war, arguably in Yugoslavia until Tito picked up his ball and left the game, and later still in China - I might add the the Prague Spring was directly inspired by the experience of the Popular Front and soviet-tanks showed how compatable this was with Russian foriegn policy). To this external desire, must be added the opportunist desires of a rising middle class in Spain some of which had radical representation in the CP, these sought for their own miscalculated benefit (as class representatives) to willingly fit into Russian policy strategies. The result was needless catstrophe. To attribute this disaster to a mere policy deviod of class context is not what I would call a materialist approach. The policy played a role but the class context made the policy. What I am saying the mass Popular Front was an invention of class history mouthed by Dimitrov, that there has been something of a conspiracy of silence in the left which is at odds that just in this period large numbers of workers identified with communism, read the works
Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
I don't understand your position of these issues, Louis. Are you opposed to cross-class alliances (such as the popular front that Dmitrov advocated)? but aren't a lot of the third-world causes you support organized as cross-class alliances? for example, wasn't Peron's movement a cross-class one? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Peron's was the leader of something called the Labor Party of Argentina. It had all the class characteristics of the British Labor Party during the same period, which it was specificaly modeled on. In other words, it was committed to increasing the worker's share of the pie. There were bourgeois parties in Argentina, including the Radicals who trace their origins to the urban middle class of the early 1900s, and the party of the estancieros (ranchers) whose name I don't have handy. Marxists in Argentina had sharp differences over how to evaluate Peron's movement. I would side with those who argued it needed to be defended against imperialism, just as Hugo Chavez's today. In other words, if I were a Marxist in Argentina in the 1940s or in Venezuela today, I would have organized demonstrations against any coup attempt. By the same token, I would try to patiently explain to the masses that the only way that the social experiments of Peron and Chavez could be safeguarded was through a break with imperialism and the local compradors. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
Or the Tercerista, in the FSLN? Daniel Ortega Saavedra - [ Translate this page ] ... cuyo seno Ortega desempeñó el cargo de coordinador. Miembro del grupo 'tercerista' del FSLN, la facción más moderada de las tres que lo conformaron durante ... http://www.gratisweb.com/ladron16/dortega.htm M.P. 4/24/02 8:51:21 AM, Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't understand your position of these issues, Louis. Are you opposed to cross-class alliances (such as the popular front that Dmitrov advocated)? but aren't a lot of the third-world causes you support organized as cross-class alliances? for example, wasn't Peron's movement a cross-class one? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Greg Schofield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 7:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:25350] Re: Re: Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists Louis this is more guilt by historical association. what happens in history is obviously complex, contradictory and all too often ironic. Simply making a simple reduction of the Popular Front to siding with the bourgeousie, is not about the Front at all but rather a more abstract question misplaced in this context. Confronted with a massive reactionary attack Dimitrov simple gave voice in clear style to creating not some limited and secartian united front (which had been semi-offcial policy since the year dot and is the only form of unity a sectarian the limited left can have) but forming a political unity in the mass of the population itself (ie by-passing the fomal unities which you seem intent on foiting on the Popular Front). Dimitrov did not speak of parties but classes and sections of classes (ie not the political representatives but the classes themselves) the role he pushed forward for communists was to be the rock upon what all else could be built. As I said the Australian experience while having many stalinist warts was explosive and at the rank and file level led to all soughts of people working together and putting ideological differences aside while hammering out a common platform loosely connected with the main anti-fascist thrust of the Front. Hence in this period there was an explosition of proletarian culture, education and mobilization, a magnet which drew in people from every concievable position from conservative Christians to truely liberal members of the bourgeoise, to shop-keepers and the destitute (ie the very sections and classes which Dimitrov identified and which CAME UNDER PROLETARIAN LEADERSHIP - which bureacrats worked hard to convert into CP power). And all of this when Stalin is painted as Uncle Joe all seeing and all knowing demi-god, where party bureacracies fought a long and later successful battle against THE VERY ELEMENTS UNLEASHED BY THE POPULAR FRONT staretgy. Contradiction, irony, complexity - no simple formula of Popular Front = collaboration. We can either explore our history to understand the complex interactions which produced Spain, or we can look for dynamics long hidden by the official position of Trotskism and Stalinism (which soon as possible and where-ever possible broke with the Popular Front). Louis to this you bring banalities, at best misdirected but all displaying no attempt to comprehend the policy as policy or the period of history as history. We cannot pluck out random examples and simply say, there is the proof, nor can we argue by mischaractisation (Popular Front proposed class collaboration). It simply does not work, it is part of our sectarian legacy (or should I say leprosy). And beyond all the complexity that were Spain it was not all that difficult to work out what was going on - but none of this involved the Popular Front as such, though all of it was dressed up in frontism. Stalin and Russian state policy wanted a bargaining chip in their geo-political chess board. To have such a chip they needed direct control over the governement of Republican Spain and they needed a Governement which posed no real class threat to the rest of Europe (this was repeated again in the Greek Civil war, arguably in Yugoslavia until Tito picked up his ball and left the game, and later still in China - I might add the the Prague Spring was directly inspired by the experience of the Popular Front and soviet-tanks showed how compatable this was with Russian foriegn policy). To this external desire, must be added the opportunist desires of a rising middle class in Spain some of which had radical representation in the CP, these sought for their own miscalculated benefit (as class representatives) to willingly fit into Russian policy strategies. The result was needless catstrophe. To attribute this disaster to a mere policy deviod of class context is not what I would call
Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
Re; the Stalin-Hitler Pact. See, Betrayal, by Wolfgang Leonhard. On the reaction in Western European CP's after the Pact was announced. Leonhard also has an interesting autobio of his youth in the CP. Published here by right-wing publisher under the title, Child of the Revolution. Michael Pugliese 4/24/02 11:37:43 AM, Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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
Re: Re: 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 I believe that yours is a correct and very principle position. Melvin P.
Re: 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 I agree. The difference between the response of the communist in the imperialist countries and the communist in the countries under attack by aggressive fascism demands somewhat different strategy and tactics. Mr. Stalin was faced with a specific world alignment and basically made the right calls. If one understood the Popular Front to mean surrender to the bourgeoisie, then that is on you. Why surrender anything to the bourgeoisie? Melvin P.
Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
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
Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
University Press, Princeton 1994 Chifley D726.5 .S7413 1994 focus on the ideology of fascism Postmodernist approach Holmes, Douglas R. Integral Europe: fast-capitalism, multiculturalism, neofascism Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J. 2000 Chifley D2009 .H65 2000 Ordinary Germans and the holocaust Browning, Christopher R. Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion Chifley D804.3.B77 1998 account of perpetrators of elements of the holocaust Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah Hitler's willing executioners : ordinary Germans and the Holocaust Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1996 Chifley D804.3.G648 1996 also his web page famous analysis identifying all Germans as responsible for the holocaust; reworks material used by Browning Finkelstein, Norman G. and Ruth Bettina Birn A nation on trial : the Goldhagen thesis and historical truth Metropolitan Books, New York 1998 also his web page critique of Goldhagen Johnson, Eric A. Nazi terror: the Gestapo, Jews and ordinary Germans Basic Books, New York 1999 D804.3.J636 1999 further discussion of the issues raised by Goldhagen Conservative US political science approaches Hagan, John et al. The interest in evil: hierarchic self-interest and right- wing extremism among East and West German youth Social Science Research 28, 1999 pp. 162-183 a rational choice approach (available online through the Library) Elazar, Dahlia S. and Alisa C. Lewin The effects of political violence: a structural equation model of the rise of Italian Fascism'Social Science Research 28, 1999 pp. 184-202 an approach dominated by statistical methods (available online through the Library) Renton, Dave Fascism: Theory and Practice Pluto, London 1999 http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/theory.html 4/24/02 1:43:53 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 16:43:53 -0400 (EDT) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:25372] Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 4/24/2002 1:31:01 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Greg Schofield: The Popular Front was one of the great modern innovations in effective political struggle of the working class, at the plain of how communists should work it relates directly to the Communist Manifesto applying the same principles to the specific question of anti-fascist struggle. Lou: -clip-. In a struggle against fascism, you have to have clearly defined class politics. Watering down social and economic demands leads to the triumph of fascism. ^^ CB: On this issue, what about the fact that fascism _was_ defeated by the Popular Front. Fascism was defeated by the world proletariat brigade - a class. This class was under the leadership of Stalin and that is a historically recorded fact. The subsequent defeat and collapse of fascism throughout the world was connected to the turning point in World World II or as it is called by Marxist, the Second Imperialist World War and the battle for Stalingrad. Melvin P.
Re: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
Dear Louis, what you said below needs to be debated for a number of reasons. It is a widespread myth, well integrated into left tradition but distorting history while supporting the more sectarian and least defensible politics. Popular Front = sell out. Is a position that can only be maintained by abstracting history and heavily reading into Dimitrov sentiments that are simply not there. Chris Burford: Time to read Dimitrov! Louis: For PEN-L'ers who are not up on Communist Party history, Dmitrov was the head of the Comintern in the late 30s. His contribution to revolutionary strategy was the People's Front that advocated electoral blocs between socialist and capitalist parties. It lead to setbacks everywhere. Carrying out the sort of tepid reformism characteristic of the Peoples Front, the socialist Jospin has done little to distinguish himself from the bourgeois politicians, so no wonder many workers decided to stay home. During the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, the Spanish Jospins effectively sabotaged a working-class revolution by failing to carry out radical land reform and other important egalitarian economic measures. In France, Leon Blum's Popular Front was just as ineffective. Greg: Spain is used as the standard example of what is wrong with the Popular Front, yet few comment on the fact of what the CP did wrong in Spain flew in the face of the Popular Front and was criticised by rank and file communists because of this. The Spainish oppression and sectarianism (which resulted in so many needless deaths) was partly engineered by Russian agents acting directly on Stalin's purposefully machevellian agenda, and party by bureacrats within the CP. While Leon Blum's French Popular Friont was marked as an alliance of forces rather then a popular front as such, but I do not know enough deatils of the rank and file organisation in France to pass comment. In Australia the Popular Front period was one which saw a great strengthening of communist organisation amongst the rank and file workers, innovations at every level and something of a goldern period never seen since - despite the fact that in other policy areas (notably international and party organisational) the effects of Stalinism were pronounced and growing (irony of history!). What I despair of is the left's refuge into its own myths, especiallly expressed in a mythological history of itself. The Popular Front was one of the great modern innovations in effective political struggle of the working class, at the plain of how communists should work it relates directly to the Communist Manifesto applying the same principles to the specific question of anti-fascist struggle. There are fasciod aspects to struggle today, not the fascism of the 1930s but certainly of the same vein, little wonder then that Dimitrov gets raised, little wonder that we also repeat the mistakes which the Popular Front sought to reverse. This tepid reformism attributed to the Popular Front is rubbish and always has been, yes there was reformism and worse, but this is not either the logical consequence or even compatible to the Popular Front - for political reasons Trotsky simply foisted the worst illustrations onto the Popular Front that he could find, the mud has stuck, by the simple trick that whatever was done was dressed in the slogans of Popular Frontism, so all he did was point to obvious examples of bad politics and slandering the Popular Front with them. Louis I suggest simply reread Dimtrov for what he says rather then what he is thought to be saying and then explore what rank and file communists were doing that was compatible to the logic of this position and you will be surprised at how much sense it makes and how badly it has been slandered. Greg --- Message Received --- From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 09:26:22 -0400 Subject: [PEN-L:25263] Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists Chris Burford: Time to read Dimitrov! For PEN-L'ers who are not up on Communist Party history, Dmitrov was the head of the Comintern in the late 30s. His contribution to revolutionary strategy was the People's Front that advocated electoral blocs between socialist and capitalist parties. It lead to setbacks everywhere. Carrying out the sort of tepid reformism characteristic of the Peoples Front, the socialist Jospin has done little to distinguish himself from the bourgeois politicians, so no wonder many workers decided to stay home. During the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, the Spanish Jospins effectively sabotaged a working-class revolution by failing to carry out radical land reform and other important egalitarian economic measures. In France, Leon Blum's Popular Front was just as ineffective. The danger of fascism remains everywhere under conditions of bourgeois democracy. This is true. But to fight fascism effectively, you need to have an aroused working-class movement. Tieing
RE: Re: Le Pen triumph thanks to ultra-leftists
Louis writes:Carrying out the sort of tepid reformism characteristic of the Peoples Front, the socialist Jospin has done little to distinguish himself from the bourgeois politicians, so no wonder many workers decided to stay home. I agree. I doubt that the Trotskyists in France got the votes they did because of their ability to engage in electoral campaigns. If Chris Burford is right that they are sectarians, they probably drive people away. But Jospin drives them to protest-voting. Some of that redounds to the left's benefit. If anyone is to be blamed for the relative success of the extreme left, it's the voters. If anyone is to be blamed for their votes for the left (and for Le Pen), it's Jospin. Here in the United States, where the meaninglessness of voting has attained a high degree, there's a saying that If given the choice between voting for a Republican and a Democrat acting like a Republican, I'll go for the real thing. That's the sort of logic that drives people away from Jospin -- and toward Chirac, Le Pen, and the left. JD
