Basically when communists aligned themselves with social-democracy in the fight against rising fascism, they became subordinate to the most powerful political force, which was bourgeois directed social-democracy. The several communists parties followed the popular front tactic and it resulted in focusing on criticizing fascism instead of criticizing social-democracy.
But when social-democratic parties enacted austerity measures following the Great Depression, the workers began to associate these policies which hurt them with the communists. The only political force which was virulently against both social-democracy and the communists was precisely the fascists, so the people were drawn into the fascist movement.
So in practice the popular front tactic consistently subordinates communist movements to the strongest political force, which is usually a bourgeois party or organization with lots of financial support and defends bourgeois interests.
This makes sense. What alternatives are there? (Not that I’m short of books I should go read that might cover it, just that I’m wondering if you could give a good concise answer)
Alternatives for what, tactics for revolution? I think we still are in the phase of “What is to be done?”. Even though Lenin’s examples are extremely outdated, his work still gives a clear direction for the strategy and tactics of the revolution. Instead of “popular front” tactics, an organization should focus on engaging in polemics, promoting propaganda and recruiting workers to the organization, growing its numbers and gaining its political and financial independence as a working class party
The communist movement still hasn’t recovered from the end of the First Cold War. It needs much work to rebuild itself
More information on this? I have heard people say we should do that at the current time, and am surprised to see it so contradicted.
There is a book which thoroughly discusses this, but unfortunately, I only know its Portuguese edition available as PDF
Basically when communists aligned themselves with social-democracy in the fight against rising fascism, they became subordinate to the most powerful political force, which was bourgeois directed social-democracy. The several communists parties followed the popular front tactic and it resulted in focusing on criticizing fascism instead of criticizing social-democracy.
But when social-democratic parties enacted austerity measures following the Great Depression, the workers began to associate these policies which hurt them with the communists. The only political force which was virulently against both social-democracy and the communists was precisely the fascists, so the people were drawn into the fascist movement.
So in practice the popular front tactic consistently subordinates communist movements to the strongest political force, which is usually a bourgeois party or organization with lots of financial support and defends bourgeois interests.
This makes sense. What alternatives are there? (Not that I’m short of books I should go read that might cover it, just that I’m wondering if you could give a good concise answer)
Alternatives for what, tactics for revolution? I think we still are in the phase of “What is to be done?”. Even though Lenin’s examples are extremely outdated, his work still gives a clear direction for the strategy and tactics of the revolution. Instead of “popular front” tactics, an organization should focus on engaging in polemics, promoting propaganda and recruiting workers to the organization, growing its numbers and gaining its political and financial independence as a working class party
The communist movement still hasn’t recovered from the end of the First Cold War. It needs much work to rebuild itself
For fighting fascism specifically, though maybe that’s too tied up with revolution, as as capitalism exists, so will a potential for fascism.