> As a brief correction, I never used the word 'aberration' myself. I
> simply stated that Chris' argument couldn't hold up if you look at
> the entire history of the Comintern. For an interesting view on some
> of the valuable aspects of the third period, you might want to look
> at Robin Kelley's Hammer and Hoe, which looks at the history of
> African-Americans in the Alabama party. Kelley argues that the
> popular front was a real step back for that section of the party as
> that it really muted some of the anti-racism and forced the workers
> to work with the middle class NAACP. (It also does an interesting job
> of looking at how the rhetoric of the third period was translated
> into everyday activism.
================================
Wasn't the very commendable civil rights and trade union organizing
undertaken by the CP from the 20's to the 60's pretty consistent through the
various changes in party line, and didn't it, in fact, reach it's high point
during the period of the Popular Front? I don't offhand see a direct causal
relationship between the activity of its militants in these milieus and
either the Third Period Policy or the Pop Front. How did the alliance with
the NAACP and middle class leaders like MLK inhibit such organizing? If
anything, I would think it would have assisted such efforts because of the
credibilty enjoyed by the representative organizations and leaders within
the black community. Critics, mainly Trotskyist, have charged that the
Popular Front derailed the working class movement POLITICALLY - including in
the US, where it enhanced the influence of the Democratic party - but I'm
unaware of any critiques that it had a deleterious effect on how the party
conducted it's "mass work" outside the political arena. But maybe I've
forgotten a lot, or should read Kelley.