Got in a somewhat argument with a friend about this. I was under the impression that it was essentially far right with a different name for the sake of being different. His take was “It’s like just the good parts of socialism”
“Third Position” is a very vague term. It claims to be an alternative to both capitalism and communism. It could be anything from straight up fascism to social democracy. A few examples of “third positionists”:
-
Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler: They said fascism and national socialism respectively was an alternative to both capitalism and communism. They were lying since they 100% supported capitalism.
-
Juan Domingo Perón: Famous and loved argentinian social democrat, he called his ideology a “third position” between capitalism and communism. Far from being a fascist like Hitler, he promoted antiimperialism and workers rights during his several presidencies. He did become a reactionary in his last years (1970s) when he massacred communists and socialists, including the left wing of his own party, but i digress.
-
Christian democrats: Christian democracy, insanely popular in western europe in the 1950s-1980s, also claimed to be a “third position” between capitalism and communism. It was basically “capitalism with a human face”, moderate social democracy, definetely more right wing than Perón. They promoted capitalism but with some christian values of welfarism. Basically capitalism but with extensive welfare states.
-
Ngo Dinh Diem: The fascist US puppet president of South Vietnam also claimed to be a “third positionist”, rejecting both capitalism and communism. In reality, he loved capitalism. He created his “Personal Dignity Theory”, the official ideology of the state. It claimed that both capitalism and communism were materialist and should be rejected. He promoted a weird spiritual ideology mixing individualism, traditional values and catholicism.
So these are a few examples that came to mind, there are many more. As you can see, “Third position” by itself means nothing, you must elaborate.
Peron is a really weird edge case that I need to learn more about.
Thanks for all this, great post.
Thank you Comrade! O7 I highly recommend this video, it explains really well peronism in its 3 main branches, which are original peronism (Peróns policies), menemism (a right wing neoliberal proUS form of peronism that emerged in the 90s and crashed Argentinas economy, its associated with former president Carlos Menem) and kirchnerism (a left wing antineoliberal antiimperialist form of peronism that emerged in the 2000s and fixed the mess created by the menemists, its associated with former presidents Nestor and Cristina Kirchner and is currently ruling Argentina through president Alberto Fernandez):
Also could i please ask you something as a moderator? Thank you!
Perón was a military and he flirted with nazism pretty much from the beginning of his career, he was always opposed to Marxism liberalism, and countries that oppress Argentina but it was always positioned from a very right wing angle only that he promoted good national politics to increase production and industrialization. In my opinion it is some kind of fascism with some good national politics but since it occurred in a third world country you cannot apply fascism in the same way than in Europe.
Also how is “Perón was in the military” a bad thing? Many great socialist leaders were military men. Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, Muammar Gaddaffi of Libya, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Hafez Al Assad of Syria, i could go on.
Here on brasil our most famous Guerrila fighter and communist was an captain in the armie. And basically every communist leader is in the army, because the head of the state is also considered Chief of the army, even if he never entered the army.
I’m not saying being in the army is a bad thing, but what I’m saying is that if you ask any Peronist or Perón, they would tell you they are right wing, and I think it makes sense.
Literally wrong. The Kirchners and the current president of Argentina are peronists and they are leftists. They eliminated neoliberalism, are against the IMF and they support antiimperialist nations like Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Russia, China, etc
I am an Argentinian and I can tell you it’s not like that. There were two main groups of Peronists, right wing Peronists (who are the ones who supported the most radical politics that involved distribution of good and such, but where orthodox Catholics and more reactionaries) who were called “la vieja guardia sindical", and left wing Peronists (who were not so interested with politics regarding welfare State but weren’t so conservative) who were called “Montoneros”. Kirchners are an offspring of this later group, and they are not Peronists, they are Kirchnerist, which yeah holds a lot of the values of Perón but they made it into their own thing. Kirchnerism didn’t eliminate neoliberalism, they are neoliberals, just left wing neoliberals, but their politics don’t come even close to what Perón or Evita politics were, they are a fucking joke, the last good government was under Nestor after the 2001 crisis because our country was totally devastated and drastic measures were necessary or else you would have obliterated the country. Then year after year they have just become less and less interested in Keynesian politics, nowadays they take basically none, sure, they support other Latin American populists parties and so on, but that doesn’t go much further and it doesn’t improve the lives of the Argentinian people. Having good relations with China for example doesn’t mean much, under Macri’s government we still had them, maybe they weren’t as positive, but as an Argentinian you literally cannot not have economic relations with China because it means the death for us since we export to them most of our agrarian products. With this I’m not saying I prefer Macri, of course we are better off with Kirchnerism but don’t be fooled to think we are going to achieve meaningful change with them.
Here you have a video of Perón chasing the Montoneros out in favour of right wing Peronism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCzpf3YPML8
Also i think having Argentina not supporting US imperialism is a pretty important thing dont you think? Imperialism is the most important contradiction right now.
Of course it is important, but right now Kirchnerism is turning more and more into your typical democrat party in the US where they become virtually useless and the difference between them and the republicans is almost non existent, they have better international politics but when it comes to improving things here they do virtually nothing. If you compare it to 10 years ago they were creating plans for house building, giving more social plans, giving computers away to students and so on, now the the house building is gone, social plans are lame, they don’t give computers and they still support the bourgeoisie.
The Kirchners are literally attacked constantly by the US. They are leftists. Sure, they arent communists, they are social democrats, but they are much better than the latin american standard fascist. They investigated the crimes of the Videla dictatorship and are antiimperialists. Thats a fact. Perón was a left wing social democrat. As i already said in my original comment, he became a reactionary in the 1970s when he started massacring leftists including left wing peronists. I already said this, so why do you repeat it?
I mean, they are centre left I guess, neoliberals who go for more progressive politics, but that’s it, of course they are better than average fascist or Bolsonaro and so on, but they aren’t great either. What bothers me more is the they are the reason why communist parties don’t have greater support, since they absorb all the leftist people. I think investigating the crimes of some military dictator is the least thing you could do.
Because in my opinion he didn’t became a reactionary in the 70’s, his heart always stood with right wing peronism, he supported left wing peronism because it gave him greater popular support and everything was constantly begin stirred by military dictatorships so he didn’t have much of an option, what happened is just his ideas coming to a realization.
iirc there are both left and right Peronists, just like there are left and right hegelians.
Yeah, I mentioned that in some other comments.
What are you talking about? Fascists dont give workers rights. The welfare state under Perón was huge. Perón wasnt a fascist. Sure he bought into Mussolinis bs once in the 1920s, but thats because he hadnt been to Italy. He believed the propaganda of Mussolini. He basically thought that fascist Italy was socialist, like Mussolini claimed. Thats all the “inspiration” from fascism he got. Perón was a social democrat.
Marxism liberalism
I think you spelled something wrong
Marxism, Liberalism, etc*
-
Fascism. The third position is fascism
His take was “It’s like just the good parts of socialism”
yikes… the third way was the proposed alternative to both communism and capitalism, fascism. By Mussolini.
There is no third position, but there are people and groups that are vacillating between the bourgeois and the proletarian position, and these usually tend to be petty bourgeois in nature.
Sometimes they will call themselves “third position” because they are essentially undecided fencesitters (as much of the non-aligned movement was), or because they are lying fascists.
cringe
Spoiler to the other replies here, didn’t Gaddafi call his green book a “third position”? But yes, for the most part it means fascism.
To oversimplify, Hitler is the father of the “third position”.
It’s “neither left, nor right”, but it’s really just ‘non-marxist socialism’. You know, the thing Hitler used to describe National Socialism.
Wasnt that mussolini tho? He basically created fascism while saying it was “nor socialism nor liberalism” Hitler just copyed him, and was more succesfull.
The original definition of Socialism is government by the worker class which describe the Socialism that the American government is opposing in the global south.
deleted by creator
Bonapartism isnt an ideology (at least in the marxist sense), its a type of reactionary political movements. Its when someone coopts revolutionary aesthetics/ideology but uses them to stop progress/the revolution, under the excuse of uniting both left and right/x and y opposed groups to fight a perceived enemy. For example, Mao Zedong accused Nikita Khrushchev of bonapartism. This was because he proposed his “peaceful coexistence” and “ruling for the people” theories. This meant that the CPSU wasnt “the party of the working class and revolutionary peasantry” anymore, but “the party of the soviet people”, including the bourgeoisie, while the USSRs purpose wasnt to “promote a world communist revolution” anymore, but just to “peacefully coexist with the west”. The “perceived enemy” in this case was “stalinism”, which Khrushchev claimed was a tyrannical perversion of leninism that was destroying socialism. So as you see, Khrushchev was a total reactionary who promoted probourgeoisie views, but coated them in the revolutionary aesthetics and ideology of the Communist Party while inventing an imaginary enemy called “stalinism” to justify it. Thats bonapartism.
Another example of bonapartism is european social democracy. It adopts revolutionary aesthetics and ideology, by praising marxism and singing The Internationale, but then they promote right wing neoliberal and imperialist policies, under the excuse of “we must unite the best of socialism and of capitalism”.
deleted by creator
No problem comrade! O7 Hakim didnt make a video about bonapartism, i think you mean Second Thought.
deleted by creator
Its this video isnt it?
deleted by creator
Can you elaborate on Infrared ans Lyndon? Not trying to be confrontational. This is just new to me.
deleted by creator
1st position = conservative liberal thought
2nd position = marxist/socialist/communist thought3rd position is syncreticism. Basically people who rejected liberalism and Marxism and wanted to take aspects of both left and right. This comes in various forms. Otto Strasser wanted the economics of the socialists but the social ideology of the far right. He was an important figure in the left wing of the NSDAP, which was purged during the night of the long knives. Fascism and Nazism are considered third position, but third position is not limited to fascism.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
