"United Front" is a phrase used, if not coined, by Lenin, referring to a tactical alliance between the Social Democrats and Communists; it was opposed by Left Communists like Pannekoek, Goerter, Korsch, Mattick Sr., who were in turn pilloried by Lenin in "Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder." The UF was then abandoned in the late 20's when Stalin defeated Trotsky (pushing him initially into internal exile in Alma Ata) and the Left Opposition (anti-Stalinist Bolsheviks of the pre-Trotskyist 1920s), not to be confused with the Left Communists. Stalin initially forbad Communist collaboration with Social Democrats and Labor parties, declaring these to be the "main enemy" in the Third Period, which was supposed to be the doorway to the social revolution. This involved inspired slogans like the pre-war German CP's leader Ernst Thaelmann, "After Hitler, Us!" He died in Dachau or Buchenwald, I forget which. Anyway, after the fascists wiped out the SDs and crushed the Communists, in 1936 Stalin declared the Third Period over and inaugurated the Popular Front -- there being no more SDs to collaborate with where it mattered, the Pop Front involved an alliance of "all democratic forces," i.e., Communist collaboration with and support for bourgeois democratic parties like the Democratic Party. Apart from a scare about the immanent restoration of fascism in the liberal democracies during the high Cold War, 1947-53, the CPs have been struck there, declining, ever since.
Think of all the years I wasted learning this stuff.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Apr 20, 2007, at 6:11 PM, Jim Straub wrote:
>
> > While appealing to left theology and dogma, this
> strategy
> > (which has been the main one used by all
> tendencies of the US left for
> > decades) shrinks and isolates the left at all
> turns possible.
> > Thanks to
> > this way of thinking, we are the generation that
> has brought the
> > left to its
> > smallest state since the terms were first invented
> in the french
> > revolution.
> >
> > The left in the US, by being unwilling to ally
> with or otherwise
> > engage with
> > any individual, organization or social grouping
> that already has
> > the same
> > position as the left on all forms of imperialism
> and other evils,
> > ensures
> > that it is only allowed to talk to, oh, say, .5%
> of our own
> > population.
> > Huzza for the united front.
>
> Ok, so what's your strategy for getting out of the
> left ghetto? A
> united front (isn't that a Trot phrase? as opposed
> to a pop front?)
> with Lee Scott?
>
> Doug
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